It happened again. Some new software or technology has oozed its way into public awareness, and some people are claiming it’s going to replace human professionals.
In this case, it comes right on the heels of another software that was generating “art.” This one claims to be able to generate “writing.”
The people pushing for it think that it can replace real human writers, and the real human writers are afraid they’re right. Everyone else—me included—is just afraid that laypeople will once again believe that AI is the way to go.
So here are my thoughts on why I think AI sucks—in this case, as it pertains to replacing a real, human copywriter.
This is Nothing New
Nearly 200 years ago, brand-new technology eliminated the need for human visual artists.
Wait. That’s not true, is it? But in 1840, a French painter saw an early form of photography and signed, “From today, painting is dead.” And the world never produced another painter.
After that, radio completely replaced books, and then television eliminated radio for good. That was 1979, when “Video Killed the Radio Star.”
Obviously I’m being sarcastic. We seem to keep thinking that new technology is going to make human beings obsolete as creators. But human beings keep bringing new thoughts to the table. And the other human beings who are making the technology can’t keep up with the code.
Still, they can keep trying. Meanwhile, human beings are going to keep creating things that other human beings want to consume and be a part of.
“Copy” Isn’t Disposable
People who treat copy as an afterthought are always going to get bad copy—whether they use an AI generator or an underpaid high school sophomore intern.
Have you stopped to ask yourself why people would want quickly generated copy? Answer: It’s because copywriting is in demand. If copy were something malformed that you scraped up off the bottom of your shoe, then no one would bother trying to replicate it.
The fact is, today’s search engines have already moved way past terrible, throwaway copywriting. Because people have been trying to game the SEO system for forever by using crappy writing chocked full of keywords that no real human would ever want to read.
Today’s search engine algorithms are geared toward making a meaningful, authoritative connection with real human beings. And, by the way, your company should be geared toward making that connection, too.
After all, we already have text out there that just fills space. It’s called lorem ipsum.
AI Gets the Facts Wrong
Turns out, AI is not so great with the fact-checking.
Or understanding and communicating technical topics.
Is this the technology you want to represent your brand in writing?
Just Replacing Writers…with Editors
“So,” you say to yourself, “I’ll just have the AI write the article, and then someone will check it to make sure it’s all correct.” OK, but then you’re just replacing one human job with another.
And I have it on good authority (from my own professional copywriting human being) that it’s much easier to write a good article from scratch than it is to try to correct a mediocre (and occasionally incorrect) article that’s already been vomited up by a toaster…er, “written.”
AI Isn’t Accountable
This is really what all these points boil down to. AI doesn’t care if it screws up your branding. When it screws up—and it will—you’re going to be the one left cleaning up the mess.
You can’t send a machine in to represent your company. And that’s what good copywriting should do—represent your company to the people who want to know about it.
Like I said at the beginning, people can keep putting their energy into AI generation. Heck, maybe it really will be the next “photography”—a whole new art form that doesn’t replace humans but actually gives them an entirely different creative outlet.
But while they worry about that, we’re going to be over here honing our own creations.
