Why AI-Generated Writing Will Struggle To Ever Match the Wit and Charm of Human Authors
Discover why AI-generated content isn't quite ready to replace skilled human writers.
AI-generated content has undoubtedly made remarkable strides in streamlining the content creation process. That sounds like a publisher’s dream come true, right? Well, not so fast. Despite its impressive progress, AI does have its limitations and still can’t fully replicate the finesse and creativity of skilled human writers.
Generative AI is limited by its programming and the available data pools it pulls from. As a result, AI-generated content ultimately lacks accountability because no person or entity is responsible for its creation. This lack of accountability can prove problematic regarding issues of inaccuracy, bias, and inappropriate content.
Today we’ll delve into why AI-generated content falls short compared to authentic human-written material. We’ll also touch on what AI is great for so you can use it appropriately in your mission to develop exceptional, rank-worthy copy.
How Does AI Content Creation Work?
At a basic level, AI content creation utilizes advanced algorithms and machine learning techniques to generate written material.
These sophisticated programs, often called natural language generation (NLG) systems, can learn to mimic human writing by analyzing large volumes of pre-existing data.
The process starts with selecting an AI-generation platform (such as ChatGPT) and inputting a prompt or topic. The AI system then analyzes its vast database of information for relevant context and constructs the output piece by piece.
GPT-3 is a popular AI language model developed by OpenAI. It’s been making waves due to its impressive capabilities in various creative applications such as articles, blog posts, stories, or even poetry.
Nevertheless, it’s important to understand its limitations and potential drawbacks. You should always use AI tools cautiously and keep a critical eye on their accuracy and appropriateness.
Related: Eleven Small Business Blog Mistakes That Sabotage Marketing Efforts
7 Reasons Why AI-Generated Content Cannot Replace Skilled Human Writers
Despite the advancements in AI-generated content, there still exist several significant reasons why these tools cannot replace skilled human writers just yet. For instance, authors adept at storytelling can weave emotions masterfully into their narratives – something machines have not been able to accomplish so far.
Let’s look at a few ways robots struggle to outperform the human mind.
1. AI Generators Don't Produce Publish-Ready Content
One of the most significant shortcomings of AI-generated content is that it often requires editing and polishing before it can be considered suitable for publication. Although these tools can quickly generate text, they certainly don’t have the same linguistic finesse as human writers.
Even when AI gets the facts correct, its final output may still lack the coherence and flow that skilled human writers effortlessly provide in their work. Algorithms depend heavily on pre-existing data sources and struggle to mimic the unique thought processes that typically guide human creativity and storytelling.
It all ultimately culminates in the need for human intervention – no matter how you slice it. Editors must invest additional time refining AI-written pieces to meet the quality standards publishers and audiences require.
2. Only Human Writers Can Connect on an Emotional Level
One of the biggest challenges in content creation is connecting with your target audience on an emotional level. Emotional connection is where human writers excel compared to AI machines.
A skilled writer can create a blog post about overcoming personal obstacles that connect with readers who have experienced similar struggles.
On the other hand, AI doesn’t have emotions and cannot possibly capture this level of connection. It may spit out factual information, but that’s about where it ends for the robots.
So, while AI tools are becoming more sophisticated by the day, they simply cannot replace a skilled human writer's unique ability to engage audiences on that deeper emotional level.
3. AI Can't Fully Capture Your Brand's Voice
Your brand's voice is crucial in developing an identity, establishing values, and connecting with your audience. That said, one of the most significant drawbacks of using AI-generated content is its inability to fully capture your brand's voice.
Yes – AI technology may be able to mimic or imitate your company's writing style to some degree, but it cannot fully match human nuance or creativity. Relying solely on AI-generated content often results in generic and unoriginal content devoid of personality.
Ultimately, you want to ensure you produce high-quality content that accurately resonates with your target market and reflects your unique brand identity. Unfortunately for some, there is just no proven shortcut, AI or otherwise.
Your best bet (at least until the robots prove otherwise) is to hire professional writers who understand how brand voice works within the context of crafting compelling and engaging pieces for your audience.
4. Plagiarism Can Be a Recurring Issue
Another significant concern about AI-generated content is the potential for plagiarism. Since these tools rely on pre-existing information and data, ensuring that content production is original and not simply copied or lifted from other sources can be difficult.
While some AI generators may have built-in algorithms to detect plagiarism, there's still a risk that duplicated content could slip through the cracks.
To avoid this issue, it's imperative that writers work with reputable AI platforms and take measures such as running generated content through plagiarism checkers before publishing it.
5. You Run the Risk of Copyright Issues
One of the most arguably unknown risks associated with AI-generated content is the potential for copyright infringement. AI writing tools are programmed to sift through vast amounts of existing content, which can put you at risk if your generated content overlaps too much with someone else's work.
For instance, when AI systems train on a large dataset of copyrighted images, there’s a risk that the AI-generated content could incorporate elements from those images without proper attribution or permission. Similarly, if the AI system trains on copyrighted text, it can generate content that infringes on the original author's rights.
To mitigate this risk, you’ll want to ensure the AI system you use is properly licensed and that the AI-generated content complies with applicable copyright laws. It’s also important for AI developers to be aware of, and comply with, fair use and other legal exceptions to copyright infringement.
6. AI Translations Are Often Clunky and Repetitive
AI-generated content may come in handy when dealing with multilingual audiences, but the quality of translations leaves much to be desired. The technology struggles with idiomatic expressions and nuances that are specific to certain languages, resulting in clunky and repetitive writing that does not flow naturally.
Consider a common American phrase like "The cat is out of the bag." While most English speakers recognize this as an idiom for letting secret information slip, it doesn't necessarily make sense when translated literally into Spanish or French because it has no corresponding cultural equivalent.
So it’s pretty clear that AI translations can lack cultural sensitivity and include non-contextual references that alienate readers who come from different backgrounds. Human translation considers the subtle differences between cultures and avoids any form of offense or insensitivity while still capturing the intended message.
7. AI Focuses on Quantity Rather Than Quality
While AI content generators are efficient and can produce a significant amount of content quickly, they prioritize quantity over quality. AI often churns out generic and repetitive content that lacks creativity, emotion, and imagination.
But why does this happen?
The quality of the language model and the size of its training dataset ultimately affect the diversity and novelty of AI-generated output. Models with smaller datasets have a limited vocabulary and fewer examples to learn from, leading to less varied and more repetitive output.
AI can also struggle to effectively convey messages because it lacks the human understanding of context and nuance. For example, AI may be unable to distinguish between sarcasm and sincerity or between a joke and a serious statement, leading to misinterpretations and miscommunications.
This approach to writing can cause big problems for publishers and bloggers who rely on unique, high-quality content to engage their readers.
So while AI technology can be useful in assisting good human writers with tasks like establishing outlines and developing ideas as part of the creative process, it cannot replace them entirely because there is no substitute for originality when conveying messages effectively.
How Can AI Assist Good Human Writers?
Now that we’ve put the robots in their place, how can AI tools be valuable to good human writers looking to elevate their content creation process? While there are limitations to what AI-generated content can achieve on its own, it has the potential to aid qualified human writers in creating top-quality content.
Here are a few ways AI can help.
AI Effectively Helps Establish Content Outlines
One of the key benefits of AI-generated content is its ability to help establish effective content outlines. By analyzing trends and patterns in user behavior, AI can identify topics that are likely to be popular and generate ideas for compelling content.
Quality AI models undergo a few steps to generate content outlines.
Step 1: Understand the Topic
The AI model interprets your target topic by analyzing existing and relevant content. It will identify key terms and map out relationships between different ideas.
Step 2: Identify Key Points
Once the AI model understands the topic, it identifies key points that must be covered in the content. AI uses natural language processing techniques to extract important information from existing content and organize it into a logical structure.
Step 3: Determine the Hierarchy
After understanding the topic and identifying key talking points, AI will determine the hierarchy of the content. It decides which points are most important and should be covered first (and which less important data can be covered later). It can also identify subtopics and organize them under relevant main points.
Step 4: Generate Your Content Outline
After thoroughly analyzing the topic, key points, and hierarchy, the AI will generate an outline that provides a clear structure for the content. A human writer can adjust and refine the outline to meet the intended audience's needs and achieve the desired goals.
AI Helps Develop Ideas and Beat Writer's Block
One of the biggest challenges for content creators is coming up with fresh and engaging ideas. This is where AI can be particularly helpful, though it can’t replace human creativity entirely.
However, writer's block is still a real issue many content creators face. While AI can help to develop initial ideas, only human writers can bring unique perspectives and innovative approaches to the table.
AI Is Regularly Updating and Improving
AI-generated content is still imperfect, but it continues to improve daily. In fact, one of the benefits of AI technology is that it's regularly updated to enhance its capabilities.
Machine learning algorithms constantly learn from data and refine their output, improving performance over time. These tools can now generate more coherent sentences and paragraphs that convey meaning in a way humans can easily comprehend.
Billions of web pages are constantly vying for attention on search engines like Google. Ultimately, your business or brand must outperform the competition by supplying high-quality content to your target and potential audience.
Nevertheless, generative AI is currently nothing more than a supportive tool for skilled human writers to craft valuable and publish-worthy content.
Can AI Content Rank Well on Google?
Let’s get real for a minute–ranking well on Google can make or break your business these days.
Many content creators turn to AI-generated content as a way to improve their search engine rankings quickly and cost-effectively. But is using AI-generated content ultimately helpful or hurtful? It boils down to how you use the AI and your intent for developing the content.
So while AI-generated content can help boost SEO by providing keyword-rich articles that meet certain ranking factors like word count and relevance, your content should not have the sole purpose of ranking well. You must consider the user experience and offer something valuable and authentic to your readers.
Google goes on to say in their Search Guidance About AI-Generated Content document:
“Those seeking success in Google Search should be looking to produce original, high-quality, people-first content demonstrating qualities E-E-A-T.”
So, it’s relatively clear that generating AI content for your website does not technically go against Google Search Guidelines. If your goal when using AI is to find creative ways to add further context and information to help your readers, that’s excellent. If you’re using AI to find ways to get more content indexed by Google, that’s where you’ll start running into issues.
The Google algorithm updates have shown an increasing focus on quality over quantity when it comes to ranking web pages. And while AI may be able to produce large quantities of "good enough" content quickly, it cannot replicate the unique voice, tone, and perspective which makes great works stand out from mediocre ones.
Does AI Content Consider SEO Best Practices?
We all know by now that AI-generated content can produce a high volume of content quickly, but it doesn’t always consider SEO best practices.
Unlike skilled human writers who understand the importance of incorporating keywords naturally into their writing, AI generators often struggle to do so in a way that makes sense or flows well.
Therefore, it’s your responsibility as a content creator, publisher, or blogger to ensure your content meets SEO standards – that is, if you want to see success or rankings in the SERPs.
The best way to ensure you incorporate effective SEO is by working with experienced human writers who are knowledgeable about SEO best practices.
Related: Seven SEO Techniques for High-Ranking Content
The Verdict: AI Is a Helpful Tool, but It Can’t Replace Skilled Human Writers
Ultimately, while AI-generated content may seem like a quick and cost-effective solution for content creation, it still falls short of replacing skilled human writers.
The lack of uniqueness, emotional connection, brand voice capture, and creativity in AI-generated content makes it difficult to resonate with readers. However, this doesn't mean AI tools need to be abandoned altogether.
AI can effectively assist good writers in developing outlines and beating writer's block. Plus, technology is rapidly evolving and updating, so there's potential for future improvements in generative AI technology at some point down the line – time will tell!
How is your content stacking up against the competition? Do you find leveraging certain aspects of AI helpful, or does it ultimately create more work to get it all publish-ready?
We’d love to hear about your experience with AI-generated content in the comments below!
At InspireMedia, we craft content your way. Do you want 100% human-researched and written content? We do that. Want to join forces with the robots and have your AI draft edited into a premium work of art? We do that too
Contact us today to learn more about your content creation options.
We look forward to helping you turn your vision or business venture into a successful campaign!
