AI content editing tools need the human touch to make humans better writers. In the 18 months since OpenAI launched ChatGPT, more than 40 generative AI writing tools have led the Marketing AI Institute to claim in a recent blog that the “… future is being created right now by companies using cutting-edge natural language models to commercialize generative AI tools that actually write and edit as good — or better — than humans.”
That is a very, very strong statement.
Yes, there is no doubt that these AI tools can write content like humans and can generate text that is grammatically correct (usually), but it may not be factually accurate, nor can it replicate the creativity, the originality of the nuances of human writing. These tools also lack emotion, personality and cannot formulate their own thoughts and opinions.
Write better than humans? I think not.
Underscoring that point, a recent Fast Company article on “Why We May Be Headed for a Generative AI Winter,” included OpenAI Chief Operating Officer Brad Lightcap’s comment on a recent 20VC podcast that “these models are not that good.”
Yann LeCun, Chief AI Scientist for Facebook AI Research, the 2018 winner of the ACM Turing Award (often referred to as the “Nobel Prize of Computing,”) echoed that comment, saying that while transformer-based Large Language Models (LLMs) have made tremendous strides over the past five years, they’re still “not that smart.”
Limitations and Drawbacks
Other articles from a variety of sources have specifically explored the limitations of AI content editing tools, including the Forbes article on “14 Benefits And Drawbacks Of Using AI Tools To Write Business Content.”
In fact, prompted to generate a list of the key limitations of the top AI content editing tools, Perplexity, the AI chatbot-powered research and conversational search engine, cited the following list, noting that AI content editing tools:
- Can be helpful in writing and editing, but human review is necessary to ensure accuracy, originality and a personal point of view necessary to create truly engaging content.
- Struggle to understand human context and tone, often resulting in content that lacks creativity and a unique voice.
- Can follow the basic rules of grammar, but may struggle with the more complex style guidelines of legal or academic writing.
- May have limitations in accurately filtering or including objectionable or controversial content.
- May suffer from a lack of transparency, making it hard to understand its decision-making processes.
- May raise such ethical concerns as bias, fairness and transparency.
The Need for Human Oversight & Expertise
There is no doubt that AI content editing tools offer significant benefits in terms of efficiency and productivity, but it is crucial to recognize their limitations and incorporate human oversight and expertise to ensure highest quality, most contextually and ethically appropriate content.
The AI content editing tools that span almost the entire alphabet from A (Aiseo.ai) to W (Writesonic) offer tremendous potential for content creation, but it is essential that they be accompanied by human editors. Collaborating hand in hand with generative AI will enable human editors to harness the power of this technology and alleviate potential risks while ensuring human creativity. That’s what the role of generative AI should be – to ensure the highest quality content that reflects our own beliefs and personality while capturing the interests of our intended audiences.
Whether working in public relations, digital marketing or web content development, only human editors and writers can make this possible. The beauty for writers is to leverage the power and unique capabilities of AI to become better writers. The human touch and humanizing AI content offers the promise of creating better writers – not that AI will write better than humans.
Interested in finding out how Writing For Humans™ can ensure the human touch necessary to produce the most clear, concise and compelling content from generative AI? Contact me at randy@writingforhumans.co for a free, no obligations consultation on leveraging this powerful technology.
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