June
19, 2021
6 min read
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is taking over just about every aspect of communication. From Siri answering your vocalized questions to Amazon recommending products based on your browsing history, AI has permeated our lives in ways we don’t even think about anymore.
AI is developing faster than ever — experts have projected the global AI market value to reach $190 billion by 2025. It’s not time to panic about Skynet taking over just yet, but it is important to understand how AI is currently impacting and will continue to impact writers and other professions.
Human writers will always have a place in content creation. I teach over 500 of them in my academy, and I see a real need that grows every year. The real uncertainly lies with the question of “In what capacity?”
Will AI become so powerful that editing machine-generated work rather than writing unique articles will become the norm for content creators?
My prediction: not likely. At least, not anytime soon.
Artificial intelligence is making waves, but content writers aren’t going anywhere
It’s no secret that content creation is a time-consuming process. Even with the help of AI tools, it takes a lot of time and effort to create a professional piece of content. That’s why so many companies are turning to AI. It can help them get more content created in a shorter amount of time.
AI isn’t expected to replace writers entirely — not yet, at least. When it comes to writing, there are still some things that AI can’t do. For example, it can’t create truly original content.
Now, what would you say if I told you those three paragraphs you just read were written by AI? Because it was.
Overall, it’s pretty good for a machine, and AI tools have massively improved over the last few years. Despite some grim predictions about machines inevitably replacing a majority of human jobs in the near future, our trusty AI friend admitted in its third paragraph that it can’t compete when it comes to writing original content.
(A machine wouldn’t lie, right?)
And originality isn’t the only skill where machines fall short.
Related: The Use of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Accelerated During the Pandemic. It’s Here to Stay.
Six essential human skills that give us an advantage over AI
Perhaps the day will come when we’re able to program machines to be smart enough and adaptive enough to compete with us on equal footing, but we’re a long way from that point.
In the humans vs. AI stand-off, we still have a few tricks up our sleeves.
1. Creativity
Artificial intelligence is great at processing data and reforming it into written content. The facts are there, presented in legible, grammatically correct sentences, but it’s just missing something.
There’s simply no way to program true creativity into a machine yet. The human brain is lightyears ahead of any other creature or artificial intelligence in that department.
2. Variation
AI is getting better about emulating the way we communicate, but it hasn’t quite nailed down our natural speech yet.
Strong writing avoids repeating the same words, phrases, sentence lengths and sentence structure. We like to switch things up. AI has a tendency to sound a bit, well, robotic after a while. But it is improving.
3. Passion
When you read a book, article, poem or any other written piece, you can often feel the soul of the writer bleeding through every word. Most writers truly love what they do for a living, and it shows. There’s something to be said about human tenacity and dedication.
No matter how sophisticated we program AI processes, there’s simply no way to recreate the level of sentiment, passion and commitment that allows us to connect with one another so deeply through indirect means.
4. Empathy
Robots can do many things, but they can’t feel emotions or figuratively put themselves in our shoes to understand the challenges we’re facing. For this reason, AI isn’t likely to replace humans in customer service or any other field that requires a personal and empathetic connection.
5. Experience
No amount of data can compete with the value of true experience, just like pictures of exotic places on Google can’t amount to really traveling there. Similarly, without experiences to draw from, AI writing often feels somewhat hollow below the surface.
6. Judgment
Computers are programmed to make choices based on a series of parameters, but that isn’t the same as developing judgment skills. Human copywriters rely on values, knowledge gained from experience, and intuition to write topics that will resonate with people.
Many writers “go with the flow” and allow the writing to naturally guide them, sometimes in directions they weren’t necessarily planning to go. We make choices as we write.
AI hasn’t yet become intuitive and adaptable on that level yet. Rather than shift gears into a related topic if that’s the way the piece is flowing, AI will often circle back and repeat information because it’s bound to a specific outline or set of topics to follow.
Related: 4 Reasons Why Workers Should Welcome Artificial Intelligence In the Workplace
AI is a tool to enhance human work, not replace it
People and businesses still need content writers, and the truth is, humans aren’t going anywhere. AI falls short when it comes to creating search engine optimized (SEO) content, among other categories.
Still, despite some shortcomings, there’s no denying that AI has its benefits and will be playing an important role in our lives for the foreseeable future.
Rather than resist the changes, we at Express Writers have embraced AI as a supplemental resource. Although we’ve sampled several different AI tools, our favorite is the third iteration of Generative Pre-Trained Transformer (GPT-3) AI.
A language AI tool called Hyperwrite assists us by:
- Jumpstarting ideas: Allowing AI to make recommendations helps our writers push through writer’s block when they’re stuck.
- Creating first drafts: With a little guidance throughout the process, AI can produce usable material that just needs some TLC and editing to bring out a human touch in the final draft.
- Cutting production time by nearly 50%: A little help can go a long way by reducing the time we spend researching topics and powering through rough drafts.
The future lies in the capable hands of talented human writers. AI is not likely to ever fully replace content writers, but it can be a versatile resource to assist them and speed up the creation process.
The passionate writers who embrace their tools rather than fear them have nothing to worry about for the future.