“Can you get AI to write a blog?”. Good question. As I write this there’s a lot of debate around AI technology on the news, and as I understand it a few prominent tech leaders such as Elon Musk are calling for it to be slowed down or halted before we end up with the Terminator franchise becoming a reality. ChatGPT from Microsoft is now capable of doing all your coursework for you, computers can compose music automatically and artists are being replaced by AI that can do all the artwork for zero effort. Interesting times ahead for us all…

Surely the same can be applied to blogs? Probably, though I’ve not tried and nor would I, blogging is something I do because I enjoy it and want to be able to put my own thoughts down rather than have something done for me but I’d imagine that we’re about to see an explosion of digital content creators within airsoft. In recent years there seems to be a growing proportion of players looking to become airsoft celebrities without giving much back to the community. Players who want to be well known just for being who they are, not what they bring to the table.

My worry would be that this whole idea of having a bot do all the work for you means that these players or celebrities, whichever way you want to think about them, will simply kick back and have all their work done for them in a bid to generate some growth. Empty, soulless, bot driven content either with written pieces or artwork. Already there’s a whole host of graphic artists on Instagram desperately offered up the same custom artwork for patches and banners, and you can tell they’re all using the same app to generate it. And then they expect a fee for their work…

If you’re going to be a content creator, then put the effort in to do something good and share it with the community. A creator is exactly that.

creator
/krɪˈeɪtə/
noun
a person or thing that brings something into existence.

Airsoft in recent years, like many hobbies, has spawned a group of people who decide they want to try and make money off the back of it. And once one starts and goes big, like Novritsch, everyone wants to jump on and copy. Some can, some have skills and knowledge to give to the community. Others don’t, but probably sit through those YouTube ads that tell them they can easily make an income online with little to no effort. And that’s where automated writing will come in – I genuinely expect a flood of non genuine blogs to appear soon designed to enhance a players reputation or something to generate a few coins off Google ads. In fact by writing this article I bet it sparks a few people into trying, although once the community finds out it’ll get shot down quickly.

Airsoft is a great escape both from normal life but also screens. Getting out into the world outside the office/home/home office. Meeting real people to play real Call of Duty. Honestly if I could publish each of these blogs as a physical copy, typewritten onto thick, tea stained paper and posted out in an envelope that smells of surplus stores I would (but posting 100k copies would seriously impact my carbon footprint). Only right that the media we share is real too.

Otherwise next we’ll start seeing deepfakes of airsoft celebs, positive-only gun reviews, photoshopped ghillies and edited footage making it look like your average Joe sits and lands 100m headshots all day long. And nobody will think to question any of it.