Hello Cyborg writers!
I thought I would give you a behind-the-scenes look at one of my most recent posts where I generated a 40-minute keynote presentation using only ChatGPT.
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This week I was invited to present on artificial intelligence and writing at Texas A&M University-Texarkana. I'm big on content reuse, so I took a keynote I had done for a Pakistani audience and adapted it for this new context. I reworked it a bit and added some practical elements at the end to introduce the audience, many of whom were new to ChatGPT, to the capabilities of generative AI.
I also showed them the conversation with ChatGPT that created the keynote. Since I’ve had very little time to write this week, I thought I’d make a video of the same for all my readers!
Summary
I used AI to adapt the video transcript for following text. To get the full details, you’ll need to watch the video.
To create this "cyborg keynote," I used ChatGPT Code Generator. I've found it generates more structured, coherent long-form text than ChatGPT or other models. I think this is because Code Generator was trained on code, so it approaches language and prompts more systematically and structurally.
I started with a simple structured prompt, providing context like the conference name, audience, and title. Then I gave it three pieces of content from my previous work - a blog post, transcript of a podcast interview, and some notes. I told ChatGPT my plan was a 4-part keynote: introduction, humanist vs. posthumanist attitudes, religion's role, and a conclusion.
ChatGPT proposed an outline, which gave me a starting point to build on. I had it draft an introduction, which was decent but superficial, so I gave it some guidance to include a section explaining how I wasn't arguing for any religious position.
We went back and forth as I had ChatGPT incorporate key sources like James Porter on technology and writing, and Bruno Latour on posthumanism. I also had it use examples from my own work with AI poetry to illustrate my points.
The process was very collaborative and dialogic. I provided guidance, data, examples, and edits. ChatGPT can't simply generate a coherent 40-minute presentation on its own from a vague prompt.
After 3 hours of conversation, I had a decent working draft. I still needed to compile the sections, do some reorganizing and editing, but it was a great start. The keynote took shape through structured prompting and giving ChatGPT the building blocks it needed to put together a keynote in my voice.
I hope this behind-the-scenes look gives you a good idea of my process for generating a long-form talk using ChatGPT.
Please let me know in the comments if you have questions or have tried something similar!
I'd love to hear about your experiences using AI tools for writing and content creation.
How I Created a 40-Minute Keynote Using ChatGPT