ChatGPT wrote part of this article – it didn’t work out very well

This is an excerpt from the CNBC newsletter Make It. Subscribe here.

OpenAI’s chatbot, ChatGPT, debuted in November and quickly became a viral sensation. And having seen its ability to create compelling and creative copy based on user prompts, everyone from venture capital luminaries to my bar buddies seem to be saying the same thing: it’s about to put knowledge workers like me out of a job.

Maybe this. After all, this week Microsoft announced a multi-year, multi-billion dollar investment in OpenAI.

So, for this week’s newsletter, I tested the AI ​​tool. I commissioned her to write a financial blog post about collecting tax losses, a topic I chose for two reasons:

1. I recently wrote a story on this subject.
2. The rules underlying the strategy have not changed since 2021, the last year for which Chat GPT has up-to-date information.

Here’s what happened. Keep in mind, ChatGPT warns you ahead of time that it “may occasionally generate incorrect information” and “may generate harmful instructions or biased content.”

Collecting tax losses is a strategy that investors can use to offset gains in their portfolio by selling investments that have declined in value. This can be a beneficial way to reduce your tax bill, as it allows you to claim losses as a deduction from your taxes. However, there are several important factors to consider before deciding whether to collect tax losses.

One of the key considerations is whether the investment you want to sell is actually a losing investment. If they still have the potential to increase in value, it may be better to keep them rather than sell them just to claim the tax loss. It is also important to consider the sham sale rule, which states that if you sell a security at a loss and then buy the same security within 30 days, you cannot claim the loss against your taxes.

Another factor to consider is your overall investment strategy. Collecting tax losses can be beneficial in the short term, but it should not be the driving force behind your investment decisions. It’s important to make sure you make decisions based on your long-term goals and investment horizon.

In conclusion, collecting tax losses can be a useful strategy for reducing your tax bill, but it’s important to consider the potential impact of selling an investment before making any decisions. Make sure your investment strategy aligns with your long-term goals and that you are aware of the sell-sell rule. It is always a good idea to consult with a tax professional or financial advisor before making any decisions.

The effect is part amazing and part supernatural, right? The writing is somewhat, ahem, robotic, but if you’ve never heard of tax loss collection, it’s admittedly a decent primer, and the AI ​​wrote it in just seconds.

But while I wouldn’t call any bot analysis “wrong” on its own, you’ll need a lot of extra context to act on it. You can, for example, deduct capital gains from your tax bill, but initially only to the extent that they offset similar capital gains. And while you need to be aware of the wash-and-sell rule if you’re selling shares, it’s relatively easy to get around if you’re selling a fund.

I would say that these details are not only important, but important to readers, and I have tried to get ChatGPT to include them. But the more I asked the AI ​​to flesh out these ideas in my article, the more it began to repeat the language I used in the hints.

While AI can be a powerful tool, the person who feeds it still needs to know their stuff in order to produce results that are truly useful to readers.

Just don’t take it from me. Here’s what ChatGPT said when I asked if he could take my work.

AI is not yet advanced enough to completely replace human journalists when it comes to tasks that require creative thinking, critical analysis, and the ability to understand and interpret complex social and political issues.

I wouldn’t say it better myself.

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