The future of AI is an increasingly prominent point of discussion in business. Although AI will never traverse dangerous mines or teach children about maths and English, there is mounting concern about the probability of AI replacing jobs across all industries.
The possibility of AI replacing jobs is of particular interest to those working in digital marketing, as AI can seemingly do our jobs in a fraction of the time. But, realistically, is the quality of the output comparable?
In this article, we will consider whether the future of generative AI, as it is projected, will put the copy writing career at risk of redundancy and whether the panic about AI replacing jobs is valid or simply a moral panic.
How does AI work?
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AI depends on pre-existing content that has already been published on the Internet. This content could be derived from professional or unverified sources, though. So, although AI may save time by writing your content for you, personal research into the given subject is vital.
Without the Internet’s expansive database of articles, posts, and journals, the complex iterative processing of the algorithms that AI uses to solve your questions would not work. But is the database even that expansive to begin with?
AI algorithms collate and combine data to identify patterns in the information to create a product based on its findings. However, it is often said that AI software is only as intelligent as those who programme it. So, if the information the programmers feed into their software is biased, incorrect, or incomplete, the AI will generate biased, incorrect, and incomplete responses.
It may seem as though AI is an endlessly knowledgeable hub of information. However, it is incapable of evaluating whether the information it provides is totally accurate. This is because AI isn’t human and is incapable of thinking outside of the box in its programming.
What are the positives of AI?
AI replacing jobs is more feasible in certain industries than in others. Primarily because AI is capable of the same high-quality output as a human could but with far fewer errors. Concerning computer programming, analytics, and proofreaders, for example, the comparatively minimal mistakes made by AI allow for it to become an increasingly preferable alternative to human employees.
This is only a starting point, though. What can AI do for businesses that humans struggle to match the efficiency and flawlessness of?
AI saves time
AI performs tasks incredibly quickly, and it’s said that the future of AI is set to introduce even faster, more capable software to complete tasks in public buildings, warehouses, and even pharmaceutical research.
AI creates products in just a few minutes. So, if time is of the essence, it can seem ridiculous not to utilise it, especially when the number of errors is comparatively fewer.
AI saves money
AI doesn’t have biological needs. It doesn’t require paid holidays to maintain a healthy mental state. It doesn’t require lunch breaks to revitalise itself, and it doesn’t need to sleep at night to be well rested for the next day.
AI is instant, doesn’t require breaks, and has no worker’s rights. Also, it doesn’t demand payment for its time. As the future of AI becomes more bright and the software remains as comparatively cheap as it is now, the conversation about AI replacing jobs may well become more prominent as time goes on.
The mass-market potential of AI
AI isn’t simply applicable and helpful to one industry, there are endless possibilities AI can fulfil in almost any sector you turn to. This is where its prominence in digital marketing becomes apparent. AI could be used to design a website, write a paragraph, or even create beautiful artistry (or questionable Yorkshire Puddings).
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What are the downsides of AI?
Even though AI saves time and money, and continues proving helpful to countless industries, there are still quite a few downsides of AI that should be considered.
Now that we’ve explained the functionality and the positive aspects of AI, we will discuss why AI copywriting is not feasible. The future of AI is bright, but there are just some things better done by people than software. Here’s why.
Digital Nature VS Human Nature
AI replacing jobs in data-based industries is nothing new. But why is it that AI seems to be leaps and bounds ahead in those sectors, but is taking a while to catch up in more creative ones? The answer to this is definite solutions.
I used the popular generative AI software ChatGPT, created by OpenAI, to test this theory. Asking it to solve a complex mathematics problem, which it solved faultlessly because the answer is definite. Maths follows rules, just as coding in software development does.
However, when I asked a question that relied heavily on human abstract thought for a sensical response, the AI didn’t do so well.
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AI’s reliance on existing information makes answering human questions difficult. As you can see, the response ChatGPT gave me was unnatural, clunky, and quite obviously not written by a human being. As a company, engaging with your customer base is the difference between being regarded as trustworthy or dubious.
If your content doesn’t read well, or seems generated, potential customers will be less likely to purchase your product or use your services. A copywriter can help you achieve this, as they themselves are human, but an AI tool will struggle.
Mistakes and wasted time
I mentioned above that generative AI copy writing is more time efficient than copywriters, but this fact doesn’t take amendments into account. The crux of a copy writing career is to write good quality content, review, amend and publish. If the first draft of a piece of content is not high quality and doesn’t follow copy writing rules, it will need amendments. AI is not invulnerable to mistakes.
When grading a product of AI copywriting using various software, I discovered that the content I inputted was marked down for passive voice misuse, lengthier-than-standard text, repetition and an unengaging tone.
Should I have intended to use this AI-generated content for a client, I would have had to go through the content manually and rewrite and amend mistakes. So, although not as much time is spent writing the initial draft, the time it would take to amend it would add up fast.
AI doesn’t know that it’s unengaging. AI doesn’t know that it is repeating itself. The AI was told to reach a word count and it did what it could with the resources it had.
The conclusion I came to from this experiment was that it is not an inherently bad practice to use an AI tool for information, but complete reliance on it tempts low-quality copy.
Keyword Stuffing or Low Keyword Density
Keywords are the backbone of SEO, and when incorporated into your content strategy, encourages search engines to rank your page higher. However, when used too often or too little, keywords can dramatically impact the efficiency of your content.
‘Keyword stuffing’ is the term used to describe overfilling your copy with keywords in an attempt to manipulate the search engine into ranking your page higher. Although this may seem like a great idea on the surface, keyword stuffing can result in penalties, especially on Google, that includes ranking demotion.
Alternatively, ‘Low Keyword Density’ is the term to describe not using keywords enough. An inadequate number of keywords in your copy will render the use of them in the first place, completely redundant.
Shown above is evidence of lacklustre keyword density. I have highlighted the only instance of the keyword throughout this 263-word-long piece of content. The general rule to achieve the ideal number of keywords throughout your content is to multiply the word count by 1%-2%, and the result is how many keywords you should include.
Clearly, the AI doesn’t follow this rule. So, this content is useless in terms of SEO.
Starting from scratch and writing content for each and every page on your website can be overwhelming at first. So it can be tempting to use an AI copywriting tool to do the heavy lifting for you. But what is even more time consuming is realising none of your content is SEO optimised months after publishing, and that all that time uploading was essentially pointless.
The vitality of keywords is something those in a copywriting career are very conscious of from their very first paragraph. But AI copywriting tools don’t think this way, even when you tell them to. And although the future of AI may see more intelligent keyword placement, AI copywriting in its current state cannot meet the same goals.
AI Can’t Generate new Ideas
AI’s reliance on the collation and combination of pre-existing data disallows it from generating new ideas or thinking out of the box. As humans with abstract thoughts, those with a copywriting career can perceive information differently and draw varying conclusions from their research. AI lacks the human processes necessary to do this.
The low-quality content, combined with copied content, can encourage Google to believe that the copy on your website is spam or plagiarism, which can lead to penalisation.
Google can and will penalise your website for the following offences:
- Third party spam
- User-generated spam
- Unnatural links to and from your site
- Useless content
- Cloaking
- Keyword Stuffing
- Sneaky redirects
Depending on the quality of the AI copywriting tool you use to write your content, Google may perceive the AI-generated content on your website as useless, or spammy, and detect keyword stuffing.
Although this content may be perceived as spam, Google currently has no means of actually detecting AI-generated content. But the future of AI is already beginning to be compromised with AI-detection technologies that Google may adopt in the future. This could potentially jeopardise any progress your website may have made.
Despite AI content possibly being perceived as spam, Google currently has no means of actually detecting AI-generated content, nor can it actually confirm content to be plagiarism. But the future of AI is becoming quite inundated with AI-detection technologies that Google may adopt in the future, and jeopardise the progress your website has made.
Conclusion
Although the future of AI is bright, it is not currently in any position to take the place of the copywriting career. AI replacing jobs in other sectors is becoming increasingly common, but the value of human copywriters cannot be emphasised enough.
Although AI copywriting can be beneficial regarding time and money, the clunky and unnatural tone it offers, the necessity for amendments, the risk of penalisation, the possibility of keyword redundancy, and the minimal innovation it has to offer makes AI tools more of a source of inspiration than reliability.
Here at Pod Digital, we employ several highly-knowledgeable copywriting experts who write engaging, optimised, and higher-than-industry-standard content for a variety of websites. Rather than depending on AI copywriting tools to write the content for your website, give us a call to discuss what our content writers can do for you.