AI Content Writing Doesn’t Tell Me Anything New
I recently read a post by Andrew Holland, the Head of Organic at Embryo digital marketing agency in the UK. It was about ChatGPT and AI in general. The post was in regard to ChatGPT-generated content being useful as a tool for content writers. ChatGPT is a bot that can answer users’ questions about different subjects.
Holland made a good point about tacit human knowledge being more important than a bot that can immediately spit out reasonable answers to online questions.
ChatGPT is a useful tool from a commercial standpoint. Why else would Google declare they are at a “code red” status until they’ve developed something that can compete with ChatGPT? But the bot can only provide information that it “reads” from the internet. It’s use is as a curating tool more than as an artificial intelligence writer.
Low-hanging Fruit
As a content writer, part of my everyday job is doing research on the internet. And for that purpose, ChatGPT could be valuable. But more and more, I’m being frustrated by headlines that promise to provide the information I’m looking for, only to deliver the most basic and brainless information that everyone knows already. For example, in looking for in-depth information on the latest news about Covid, I often find information that consists of little more than washing your hands regularly, wearing a mask, and socially distancing yourself. These infuriating and worthless articles are often in a “listicle” format that promises the “5 Most Valuable Tips” but delivers nothing of substance. I suspect these articles are being written by ChatGPT. The bots look for the lowest-hanging fruit and simply recycle it. They can’t know its value to human readers; it just answers a question.
Content writing takes human insight to look at subjects from different angles and reach a conclusion that may be at odds with every other viewpoint or may see a totally different value to a subject. And I’ve yet to read about a bot that provides this insight. I hope we soon get past the fascination with AI bots creating online content; it’s making my job more difficult.