As artificial intelligence becomes more and more prevalent, so too does content that’s been written by or in large part with an AI tool. There is no shortage of people on Medium suggesting that entire pieces of content – whether for a blog or for Medium – could or even should be written with one of the many available AI tools.
Yes, it’s true that Jasper and other tools could be used to spit out entire blog posts in a few minutes. And maybe there’s a use case for that sort of functionality. But don’t expect me to want to read it.
Content written by an AI lacks humanity.
I don’t care how eloquent your AI generated text is. I don’t care what the subject is. It matters not to me how long the piece is. Content created by a machine lacks soul – the very thing that makes human creativity special.
An AI can mimic and imitate humanity. Some of the better tools can even mimic the styles of various famous authors. Jasper, for example, can be told to write in the style of an author of your choice. But it’s all just an imitation – a well designed fake.
A robot may paint a picture, but it lacks something. It lacks the soul of a Van Gogh and the humanity of a Rembrandt. A neural network may string together words, but it can never be another Ernest Hemingway or Agatha Christie – no matter how closely it can imitate them.
Even if it could produce the quality of human creator, would it be the same thing? No. Absolutely not.
Content creation is about human connection.
I love writing on Medium, but I also love reading what other people have written. Read that again. I love reading what other people have written.
I want to hear what other flesh and blood humans have to say about an issue. Sure, I may or may not agree with his perspective, but at least I know I’m not reading something a computer “thought.”
When an artist creates a beautiful piece of art, what makes it special? The person behind it – the skill, the hard work, the mind of the artist. If a computer creates it, it might be an interesting study for a computer science course or a point of fascination for those studying machine learning, but it has none of what makes art special.
A human’s words will always outweigh those any machine can string together. Why? Because a machine’s creation has no connection value.
Your content invites others into your mind and way of thinking. There’s just something special about writing content for others to read. And there’s much to be said for reading the words of another person, knowing those thoughts can from another real person.
Writing entire articles with AI is slimy.
Look, here’s the thing: AI can be a great assistant for writers. Tools like Jasper can be very helpful for finding better ways to word certain things or for discovering new content ideas. But relying on one of these tools to spit out content, letting them write for you, is just slimy. And I’ll stand by that statement.
If someone tells you that you should be using AI to generate tons of blog posts or articles or that you shouldn’t be doing your own writing, laugh. That practice is, in my opinion, an insult to real writers and to writing as a profession and an art form.
Several people on Medium have suggested that people should be using something like Jasper to write instead of actually writing their own content. And that is something for which I have absolutely zero respect. None whatsoever. While you can write with AI on Medium, it’s not something that I can support – for lots of reasons.
Why would people not want to write their own content?
Maybe this sounds like a strange question, but I love writing. No, I’ve never liked writing in school, and I’m not much for being told how I have to write, etc. But I love the idea – the feeling, really – of sitting down at a keyboard and just letting the thoughts flow. That’s creativity, and that’s fun.
Now, I get that there are times when you just need to generate some basic content quickly and you’re not really in it for the fun. I get that. Even so, is it really worth saving the time if it means your “writing” has no soul behind it? Is a Rembrandt really a Rembrandt if it’s painted using a neural network? Of course not.
But too many people jump on this AI bandwagon in the name of saving time, without thinking it through. And that’s really sad to see.
AI can be a great tool and a poor replacement.
Here’s the thing I hope to get across here. I firmly believe that tools like Jasper (and the many others) can be great helps for writers. I believe that artificial intelligence has a lot of promise for those of us who write our own content.
I personally have used Jasper, not to write articles for me but to generate ideas and do some preliminary research on things. It’s been helpful. Still, I would never consider using it to replace the writing process. That, in my opinion, is laziness at its worst.
And I’ll say again, I think using AI to write for you is an insult to writers everywhere, to writing as a profession, and to writing as an art.
Whether you’re a prospective writer or someone who has been writing for years, please write your own content. Don’t rely on a computer to do what you should be doing. I’m not saying don’t use an AI assistant, and I’m not saying that these tools can’t have some benefit. But I worry for the future of the craft I love so much when people propose peak laziness in the form of letting a computer string together words as a replacement for actually writing.
Rant over.