As someone who writes copy, I find it ironic that I would use A.I. for copy assistance when writing my blogs, but I was. While there was still oversight on my end, A.I. handled the details while I handled the creativity. I was content because it saved time. I have a family, a 9-5 job, and I simply can’t afford an intern or assistant. As a result, A.I. became the answer to my problem. Then I came across this post (once I find it, I’ll link it here): The post talked about how A.I. couldn’t have developed the Nike ad for Caitlyn Clark, “You Break It, You Own It.” Then there’s Kezia, a copywriter who gives advice on writing copy and maintaining a consistent brand voice by using verbs, eliminating jargon and using poetry to write more dynamic copy. Both parties emphasize the human voice behind the copy.
Here’s the thing, I’m a High School English teacher, I write poetry (even won a couple of competitions) and I rap. It’s safe to say that I know how to write technically and creatively. So why do I feel the need to use A.I. to help write my blogs? Why am I even using A.I. for my blogs but I wouldn’t even think about using it to write a song or a poem? Not fully sure. But here’s why I’m drastically reducing my use of A.I. for my blog posts: A.I. is not human—it’s that simple. That may sound obvious, but the allure of being able to crank out blogs at a record pace is all too tempting. Especially if all I have to add to the prompt is a writing sample or tell it to sound conversational.
“A machine will never be able to distinguish when it’s the right time to make a bad decision.” Leslie Brathwaite. Click here to view that full IG REEL. Though the video was speaking about music engineering/production, the same can be said for writing. There is emotion tied to every word. And that’s something a computer can’t reproduce.
As an English teacher, I began to notice that some of my students were using A.I. to answer their writing prompts. Though I’m not sure which side of the fence I am on in terms of A.I. usage for writing assignments, what I am against is cold, emotionless writing. What I noticed was that the responses sounded the same: same cadence, same language, same tone. While I wanted my students to write well, some of them began writing perfect, almost too perfect. How could I be upset with this? How could I be mad when a student hands in a perfect response? Easy. It wasn’t human. There was no personality, and therefore no life (sidebar: when I asked, they admitted to using it).But this goes back to the previous quote, “A machine will never be able to distinguish when it’s the right time to make a bad decision.” The students were not making bad decisions (intentional or not) and that is what caused the writing to sound artificial.
When I was in school, I had a habit of writing really long sentences that were grammatically correct, but the sentences were way too long; nonetheless, the sentence was structured properly, but simply too long. The suggestion would be to shorten the sentence, which was the right thing to do. For me though, I wanted to get my point across, plus I love using all forms of punctuation. From a technical observation, the sentence was correct, even if the decision to write really long sentences may not have been the best decision given the task at hand. But that was (and still is) my style though. That is what made my style human. And that is what makes my writing identifiable.
That is why I am hopping off (ish) the A.I. train for writing copy. I want my copy to sound human. I want my copy to connect to other humans and I don’t believe that A.I. can do that for me. I will continue to use A.I. for time-consuming tasks, SEO optimization, research and brainstorming, but as for writing copy, I might have to let it go.
After all, how can I possibly be a “thought leader,” if my thoughts are consistently not my own? At that point, I’d simply be a curator.
Let me know in the comments if you use A.I. for writing. Why or why not?
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Image Description: The image features a robotic hand typing on a laptop keyboard, indicating the involvement of artificial intelligence in content creation or computing tasks. In the lower part of the image, there is a black and white border with credits and citations. In the lower right part of the image is a color palette with the colors yellow, cyan, green, red, and blue. The credits include © All Rights Reserved 2023, @FallenSeedProductions, and Twenty/Twentythree. The works cited are DALL·E and COPY.AI, indicating that the image and text generation tools used are from these AI technologies. The overall scene highlights the fusion of AI and human creativity in digital content creation.
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