3 Thoughts on Generative AI and Content Creation

Let’s be clear about one thing—AI is not the enemy. We are the enemy.

Engaging in the debate over AI and content to date has involved two extremes: AI is either the best thing to happen since the history of things happening, or it’s the end of everything we know and love.

As everyone scrambles to figure out the human-AI pecking order, while at the same time trying to promote or prevent this beast we’ve unleashed, it’s helpful to take a step back for a few reminders that can give us a broader perspective.

The AI Conundrum

The rose-colored glasses folks tend to forgive AI’s “hallucinations” as growing pains and completely overlook its misogynist and racist tendencies. The Chicken Little camp is worried about AI taking current jobs, but also about being mistaken for AI and penalized for it.

Ironic, right? Especially given that the goal with AI is to be more human. It does that by scraping from existing human content to produce characteristics that are increasingly being pegged as artificial. Now human writers are performing literary gymnastics to try to avoid those previously accepted human practices(!).

Before falling overboard into that Catch 22 maelstrom, let’s briefly explore three ideas somewhere in the middle ground of AI and content creation, away from accusations around em dashes, sentence structure, and results that are “too polished.” (And for the sake of clarity, we’re talking specifically about generative AI and content creation through writing…)

What AI is and Isn’t

1) AI is only as good as the humans behind it. This is the most important point of any discussion concerning AI—all other ideas can be rolled up under this one. And it applies to the full ecosystem of AI stakeholders:

·       AI programmers, the humans who have their own flaws, blind spots, and biases.
·       AI marketers, who both overpromise its current capability and under-imagine its range of potential.
·       AI trainers, who are shaping and grooming the technology to act more human, while carrying their own aforementioned limitations and prejudices into the process.
·       AI users, who trust that the technology has been thoroughly and objectively vetted and is therefore yielding accurate and appropriate results, not realizing that generative AI is a testing playground and we are all part of an ongoing experiment.

If we continue to assume AI will work itself out like other digital tools, it won’t. It’s not like software designed to complete a specific suite of tasks. It’s more like throwing all that software code together and seeing what comes out the other side.

For AI to be effective and continue evolving in a way that is responsible and useful, we need to know how it was created (understand its limitations); practice, practice, practice with it (develop and share case studies and best practices/guidance); and demand improvements (fix current misinformation and discriminatory flaws through better filtering and monitoring, legislate for bad actors, and provide compensation for human creations used as source material).

2) AI is a tool. It is not a strategist. It is not a creator. It is tactical, not creative. It’s like something that copies from the homework of everyone in the room to create something that is, at its best, a refined sum of its parts based on preset rules.

Again, AI pulls from existing source material—things already created, including the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. AI can’t make an effective distinction between them because algorithms can’t determine human intent. (Not yet. When they can, we’ll be having a Terminator-themed discussion about the nature of AI.)

This goes back to knowing how AI operates and the misconception that “generative” means independent. You can feed AI excellent questions and it is still limited to mining and culling the thoughts and works of others. It doesn’t offer spontaneous, freeform thinking like humans when they’re brainstorming or inventing. It doesn’t know how to strategically break the rules to create a new way of thinking or doing. When AI invents, it’s trying to fulfill the goal of providing you with an answer, not necessarily solving the challenge posed (hence the too-kindly-labeled “hallucinations”).

To crystallize this analogy, think about other tools humans use. Hammers don’t draw up blueprints and build homes themselves. GPS results aren’t accurate without human input, feedback, and adjustment. Word processing software doesn’t open itself up, kick around a few ideas, then spit out a novel. Even the best tools require humans to yield meaningful results. Which leads us to…

3) AI is not human. There is a disturbing trend of people seeking advice or companionship from AI entities. (This speaks more to a larger problem of societal disconnect than it does to the nature of AI.) Again, AI pulls from existing source material that may not be applicable to an individual’s in-that-moment circumstances. And it hallucinates (lies) without the experience or empathy to determine its impact on the vulnerable human at the other end of the transaction.

That’s another key thing to remember about generative AI and the content it “produces.” It’s transactional. You ask, it delivers something. But it’s not coming into a meeting with a great idea born of a dream it had, and it’s not pivoting to create content based on breaking news or unprecedented events. It’s not proactive and it’s not adaptive unless you—a human—change the parameters.

In the world of content creation, there’s a huge misconception that obscures the current reality of AI—that implementation equals ideation. Writing, for example, is an end-to-end process of iterative creative concepts (mental), production (physical penmanship and/or typing), and refinement (mental editing eventually leading to physical revision). For all its time-saving benefits on the production side of things, AI is not yet capable of the mental aspects of content creation.

If your motto is “more is more” and your hope is that quantity will overpower quality, then AI can help you succeed (with that goal, not necessarily with a goal of customer loyalty). If you’re interested in being a thought leader, innovator, or just telling a very real very human story that’s original to you and your experience, you need a human at the helm to create something authentic that appeals to, and is memorable for, other human beings.

Our AI Responsibility

While this blog post may appear to dump on the use of AI for content creation, that’s not the goal. Generative AI technology is useful as a jumpstart and sometimes as a sparring partner. It should not, however, be given free rein.

We are both our best friend and our worst enemy when it comes to AI. There are no limits to human creativity, yet we are quite skilled at limiting our memory, vision, and scope to within arm’s reach when pursuing the quickest or easiest path for questionable gain.

As much as the debate is swirling loudly right now, AI did not suddenly appear on the scene, fully formed and functioning like Greek mythology’s tale of Athena emerging from Zeus’s forehead. The technology we see today has been building quietly in the background for well over a decade, waiting for capabilities to catch up with concepts that were born over a century ago in the minds of science fiction writers.

Which brings us back to the only relevant point about this technology. We humans are the genesis of AI, with the opportunity to lay the foundation for the chapters to follow. Whether that road leads to a celestial revelation or hell on earth…is entirely up to us.

* Interested in learning more about the impact of AI on our everyday lives? Check out this blog post blast from the past. *

AI functionality used in creating this blog post: Microsoft Word spelling and grammar checker

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