Artificial intelligence has become a hot topic lately. Every day, we hear about new companies using AI to create content, automate tasks, and change the world. Now, human writers are wondering, “will AI writers replace content writers?”
In this article, I’ll explain why we believe AI will never replace human writers. AI can write excellent articles, but only human writers can write great articles that convert readers into customers.
If you’ve read previous articles, you know we’re fans of humans and technology teaming up. When people team up with technology, I think we can create better products and experiences for everyone. This includes writing quality content, designing beautiful websites, creating engaging videos, and automating repetitive tasks.
I also believe that humans are superior at thinking creatively and solving problems than computers are. Of course, computers are good at combining concepts, but the human touch is needed to guide them in the right direction.
Humans vs. Computers: Writers vs. AI Writers
We don’t love the phrase “AI writers” because it separates the tool from the person who uses it. This creates confusion for writers, as well as business owners. It creates a “them vs. us” mentality, but that would be like a carpenter saying, “it’s me vs. my hammer!”
Right now, there are writers out there wondering if AI will replace them. Fortunately, that’s not possible right now and may never be possible.
AI is still in its infancy, and we’re still learning about the boundaries. Often, people mistake an artificial intelligence emulating something as an AI understanding something. That’s not the case.
An AI might be able to recite jokes, but that doesn’t mean it understands humor. Likewise, an AI might be able to compose a poem that describes the deepest and most profound love, but it’s simply following an algorithm.
AI writers are assistants to your writers. Is it possible that the tool can increase your writing team’s productivity to the point where you may not need as many writers? Possibly, but if your team produces profitable output, then getting rid of writers would hurt your business.
AI Writers Need People To Help Them Understand
It doesn’t matter how you look at it: AI writers need people. Not just because someone has to click the “write for me” button, but because there are too many things that AI writers don’t understand.
Current Events and Recent History Problems
AI writing assistants don’t understand current events because they haven’t been trained on current events. So, for example, they can tell you who the president was during the Civil War, but they don’t know who the current president is (usually).
They don’t know who won the most recent Super Bowl or what controversy happened at a recent award show. This is because, generally, language models are not kept up to date on current events.
Language Confusion
There is too much nuance to human speech and human interactions. For example, AI writers don’t understand sarcasm.
They can try to emulate the understanding of sarcasm, but they don’t grasp it or understand when it is appropriate to use it.
It’s not just tone, though; AI writers can also struggle with the meaning of words. So let me teach you a phrase you’ll hopefully be excited about: lexical ambiguity.
This is one of those phrases I was thrilled to learn existed because it explains something so specific.
Bear with me. This gets interesting.
Lexical ambiguity means “words or phrases with multiple meanings, and you don’t know the intended meaning without additional context.”
Example Time: Does The AI Think We Are Talking About Zoolander Or Toy Trains?
If I said, “I love to model.” What did I mean?
Generally, most people would probably think I’m talking about Zoolander-style mugging in front of a camera.
A statistician might think I’m talking about modeling the probability of outcomes.
An artist might think I’m talking about standing before an art class to be drawn or painted (they would be profoundly incorrect).
And finally, a hobby store owner might think I’m talking about making toy train layouts.
If a human doesn’t know what I mean, a computer certainly won’t.
In my opinion, lexical ambiguity alone is a solid enough case to prove the need for human writers, but wait, there’s more!
Pattern Recognition Can Go A Bit Haywire
I was writing an article, and I had a funny little punchline that resulted in a husband being scolded and having to sleep on the couch.
It fit perfectly in the article I was writing. Later in the article, as I wrote the conclusion, I decided to have the AI add a few thoughts for me. It had picked up on some of my humorous wordings throughout the article and attempted to emulate that.
I ended up with a conclusion that would’ve left quite the sting. So instead, the AI attempted to be funny and closed the article with:
“If you don’t follow the tips in this article, your wife will leave you, and we’ll all laugh at you as you cry.”
That’s AI humor for you. It doesn’t understand where it crosses a line. It doesn’t understand the wordplay that goes into most jokes and how “being in the doghouse” is funnier than saying something like “your wife will never want to be around you ever again.”
AI Writing Assistants Are Like Cruise Control On A Car- Someone Still Needs To Hold The Wheel
AI writing assistants don’t think like human content writers with human brains. They use technologies such as:
- Natural Language Processing
- Machine Learning
- Deep Learning
They create connections based on statistical models. Here’s the thing: as they go from point, to point, to point, they journey further and further from the core idea.
Left uncorrected, your AI-generated content can quickly turn into a game of “The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.”
Why is this?
AI writing assistants are like cruise control on most cars. They control the speed and remove the need to keep the foot on the gas, but they don’t change the vehicle’s direction. So if a turn is coming up, someone better be holding the steering wheel!
Example Time: How AI Can Turn An Article About Strawberry Ice Cream Into An Article About Horse Racing
If you’re writing an article about strawberry ice cream, you might have a section about when it was invented.
That section of content might mention who is credited as the creator, Governor Thomas Bladen of Maryland, in 1744. Then it might move on to how Thomas Bladen was an unpopular governor and eventually succeeded by Samuel Ogle, a fan of thoroughbred horses. Which, of course, are a famous breed of racehorses. Then you might sit there wondering, “why is my article about strawberry ice cream discussing horse racing?”
Long-form Content Creation: Creativity and Storytelling Can Still Be Awkward
Artificial intelligence often leaves much to be desired regarding creativity and telling stories. This is probably more a limitation of the writing tools than the actual AI capabilities, but most AI just isn’t tuned for storytelling.
In my experience, AI writing assistants have trouble recalling previous details that might be important to a storyline or even just character consistency.
If you have a character with a specific kind of vernacular, often, the AI can lose that when generating a character’s dialog later.
It might have difficulty connecting a particular character’s name and the habits and behaviors attributed to them. This is where it requires a human writer to help keep things on track.
Final Thoughts
In conclusion, AI writing software has made tremendous strides over the last decade, but it still doesn’t replace the human touch entirely. Even though machines can write articles that sound like real humans, they lack the creativity and originality we know and love from our favorite authors.
That said, AI writing software is improving and will only continue to improve as time goes on. So keep reading and learning because the writing industry’s bright future!
If you know any writers concerned about their role in the world because of AI writing assistants, please send this article to them.