AI is here to stay and one of the prime targets for its applications is Content Creation.
Anyone can log onto an AI site such as ChatGPT, enter a description of what you would like an article written on as well as any parameters and the bot will spit out your content. But, like everything, it’s never quite that simple.
In time, AI will master many of its weaknesses, but in the meantime, we need to exercise caution. Not doing so can lead to problems, even to the point of legal actions against you.
The number one complaint against content written by AI is its level of accuracy. Don’t assume it will only provide you with honest, accurate content. Terms like ‘hallucinations” or “illusions” are frequently used to describe some of the unpredictable and completely inaccurate content being generated.
You need to keep in mind where the AI is getting the data it is regurgitating. AI algorithms are trained by feeding them massive amounts of data. This data comes from a wide range of sources. These can include sources like social media and we all should know better than to take everything you find in social media as gospel. Just because it says Hitler was a nice guy, doesn’t make it so.
Google is complicated. Is that an understatement or what? One of the things you can be sure of is that it is attempting to contain plagiarism. If it detects content with a very high level of similarity, it may respond, first by detecting which content was created first and then eliminating the other content from Google Search results. In addition, the algorithm may penalize the website that published it. No one can see into the crystal ball that is Googles algorithms, but you can be sure they will not respond positively to any content it may view as having been obtained through unauthorized appropriation.
While content obtained from an AI bot may be SEO friendly, you can’t assume that. We’re back to that issue of accuracy. Certainly, the bot can be encouraged to make your content SEO friendly but don’t assume it will be. You may end up with the opposite result of what you intended.
Bots sound like bots. Let’s be real. AI-generated content will generally sound flat. It lacks the personal flair that a human can contribute. If you love reading scientific abstracts, this may be for you, but for most searchers, this just isn’t so. Maybe in time they’ll adapt and learn how to sound like a real human, but not yet.
Whoops! Is that copyrighted material? Maybe or maybe not. Don’t assume that all the content the AI spits out is in the public domain. There is a genuine risk that you may be infringing on intellectual property.
One dead giveaway that content is AI produced is the frequent lack of depth in the actual content. Pure, unedited AI results tends to give somewhat shallow information. If you’re inclined to skip over TLDR and look for quality, expert insights, you’re less likely to find it in that AI generated content. You’re unlikely to find good long form writing that came straight out of an AI bot.
Branding? What Branding?
An AI will likely have a very difficult time ingesting your corporate spirit into your content. There probably isn’t a ton of info online for it to grind up to get a feel for your brand and what you want to portray to the world.
Universal Content
The information an AI is going to give you will lean towards the general. Do you want an article on CMS’s? Ok, but if you want something that ties into your operations and details your unique competency. If so, that bot is going to need some assistance.
Finally, it can cost you credibility. If your site visitors detect AI, you’re likely to lose credibility. Readers may want the feeling that they are getting their information from an actual human expert, not from an algorithm that scrapped the web for its information. It’s really about trust.
The Solution
While AI content cannot be trusted and it would be unwise to simply copy and paste what ever it spits out, it is still an extremely valuable tool for anyone in the content creation business.