Table of Contents
- AI Content Writer, Pump the Brakes?
- I Will Not Go Down Without a Fight, AI Content Generator!
- Reason #1: Lack of Accuracy
- Reason #2: Dearth of Creativity
- Reason #3: Psychopathic Lack of Emotion
- How ‘bout you, GPT, A Poor AI Writing Tool?
- Crying Nick Saban Challenge Over His AI Writing Assistant
TL;DR
Is AI coming for your job? It’s already here for us. If you’re a web content writer or looking to hire one, get the latest intel on whether this new technology is hype or hero. We focus on areas where AI struggles, like throwing good-natured shade on the most successful college football coach ever.
It might not be the mean streets of Baltimore, but AI — not Omar — is comin’!
Coming for me, your humble content writer, who conventional wisdom says will be jettisoned to the scrap heap of history like the horse buggy manufacturer or “I-have-a-12-hour-window” cable installation guy.
Is artificial intelligence hype overblown or are we on the verge of another revolution that will transform civilization and content creation?
A recent article in the Business Insider makes the case of the latter and might have you scrambling to add some muscle to that “AI Prompt Engineer” skill that you slapdashed on your resume after a late night bender of ChatGPT, an impossible deadline and too much caffeine:
The World Economic Forum estimated 83 million jobs worldwide would be lost over the next five years because of AI, with 69 million jobs created — that leaves 14 million jobs that will cease to exist during that time frame. Even the people who do retain their jobs will experience a massive shift in how they do their work: The World Economic Forum says that 44% of workers’ core skills are expected to change in the next five years.
Pump the Brakes on an AI Content Writer?
Some have doubts on the ascendancy of LLM and generative AI for content creation.
Rand Fishkin of the martech provider SparkToro reports that ChatGPT visits are down 29% since May and that nearly a third of users just rely on the tool for programming assistance.
Philip Mandelbaum of Customer Engagement Insider argues that AI or AI writing software could be another media hype bubble like Zuck’s Metaverse that is sure to pop.
I lean toward the “revolution” camp. I see AI comin’ with a sawed-off shotgun and mean mug, Newport dangling from its mouth.
Again, from Business Insider:
In the US, the knowledge-worker class is estimated to be nearly 100 million workers, one out of three Americans. A broad spectrum of occupations — marketing and sales, software engineering, research and development, accounting, financial advising, and writing, to name a few — is at risk of being automated away or evolving.
I Will Not Go Down Without a Fight, AI Content Generator!
What’s a content writer to do against the AI onslaught?
Switch careers by picking up a hammer and entering the building site?
Is high-quality content dead?
I argue that LLM AI tools are deficient, at least in their current versions, in three areas.
Reason #1: Lack of Accuracy
ChatGPT doesn’t know Pedro is President in 2023.
So much for an AI powered tool.
The new technology was trained on information from 2021 and earlier. If you ask which member of the gerontocracy currently rules us, its answer is correct, but shaky.
An AI writing tool that “cannot provide real-time or the most recent information” does not bring confidence to writers who seek accuracy and up-to-date information.
Am I the only Luddite here married to lily white veracity?
Apparently not…
OpenAI Confirms: AI Writing Detectors Aren't Reliable
In August, OpenAI released a blog post sharing how educators are using ChatGPT to assist in teaching. But an interesting revelation came with it: AI writing detectors are often inaccurate.
Do AI Detectors Really Work? pic.twitter.com/UdAfx9Ndzd
— MAMA (@ogbonna1977) September 10, 2023
Besides inaccuracies, AI algorithms can be biased as Martech Series describes:
One notable example of AI bias is the case of the Amazon recruitment tool, which was designed to automate the recruitment process by analyzing resumes and ranking candidates. However, the tool was found to be biased against female candidates, as it had learned from the male-dominated resumes in its training data. As a result, the tool consistently downgraded resumes containing women’s names or references to women’s colleges. Amazon had to abandon the project after realizing the extent of the bias and the implications it had on the recruitment process.
Reason #2: Dearth of Creativity
I have used a generative AI content tool, and I am here to report that the steak lacks sizzle.
I could link farm examples of these tools not producing creative copy, but I’ll let a case study speak for itself. They generate content in a very generic and boring way.
I am a big college football fan. Recently, the University of Texas Longhorns defeated the Top 10 rated Alabama Crimson Tide led by their Darth Vader Clone of a Coach Nick Saban.
Suppose I am a college football writer and want to compose a diss track for Bama fans.
I cooked this up:
After Saturday's smackdown in Tuscaloosa, Matthew McConaughey and Texas fans are going to wipe the floor with the tears falling from Nick Saban and Bama fans' eyes #RollSlide
— Chief Engineer of Weirdness (@CWT_CEW) September 12, 2023
Not exactly the strongest tea, but it will suffice for something brewed less the time it takes to refresh a Chrome tab.
This is the deadweight that ChatGPT serves up:
#WhoWereThoseGuys ….?
Really ChatGPT? You’re supposed to be a top AI writing assistant!
And then it gets all high-horsey and moralistic in maintaining a “friendly rivalry.”
As a Michigan fan prepared for batteries to be tossed at my head when we face Sparty in East Lansing, college football rivalries are anything but “friendly.”
Come on, man!
Bard, Google’s response to ChatGPT, doesn’t do much better:
I have never heard ONE SINGLE PERSON reply to something sarcastically with a “Sure, Jan”…
And the only Jan I know was the character on The Brady Bunch.
Come on, man. Where is the high-quality content?
AI may replace me, but NOT YET by the likes of its creativity in content creation.
Reason #3: Psychopathic Lack of Emotion
A robot writes with zero emotion.
Need to bring empathy to an email after a colleague has been let go? Don’t write it with an AI tool.
Ones and zeros don’t process emotion.
Let’s go with another hypothetical case study in this blog post.
Suppose my company Content with Teeth let me go in a cost-cutting move. I decide to fire off a farewell “Xeet” flamed with seething anger.
Content with Teeth has let me go in a cost-cutting move. I wish them well in their effort to zero out labor costs and a race to the dismal bottom line. #goodbye
— Chief Engineer of Weirdness (@CWT_CEW) September 12, 2023
How ‘bout you, GPT, Poor AI Writing Tool?
Once again, Open AI’s chef cooks with zero flavor — a dry as a desert pancake without any syrup:
Who is “#Thankful” after losing a job?
Only an AI writer robot with a serial killer’s lack of emotion.
This type of AI content generator becomes plainer than the whole state of Texas.
Crying Nick Saban Challenge with an AI Writing Assistant
I bet some of you reading this think I’m just another hack writer moaning about The High Priestess of Technology stealing their juice.
I mean, who can whine better than a rung-down wordsmith?
If this is your rub, I have a challenge.
I have a good friend who is a diehard Crimson Tide fan.
If you can get an AI writer or tool to playfully tweak Nick Saban in a way that elicits a real chuckle from my friend, I will write a 3000-word blog post on how an AI content generator is the ultimate analytical godplan of Saban’s “The Process” run wild.
Do I have any takers?
Leave a comment or find us on the socials.
💡KEY TAKEAWAYS
- “44% of workers’ core skills are expected to change in the next five years.”
- LLM AI tools are deficient in that they lack updated information, creativity, accuracy, and emotion to generate content.
- AI has flaws and biases — it can deliver wrong information and present people with inappropriate solutions or answers to a problem.
