Human posts will always trump AI posts
Ever since ChatGPT burst onto the scene in late 2022, various sections of the creative industries have been at loggerheads over this revolutionary piece of AI-based technology and its implications for the future of original, human-led content. As is so often the case with most things ‘new’, the truth around opportunity versus threat lies somewhere in the middle.
Human posts will always trump AI posts
Ever since ChatGPT burst onto the scene in late 2022, various sections of the creative industries have been at loggerheads over this revolutionary piece of AI-based technology and its implications for the future of original, human-led content. As is so often the case with most things ‘new’, the truth around opportunity versus threat lies somewhere in the middle.
Some view artificial intelligence (AI) as a passport to new imaginative frontiers and have embraced the timesaving and idea-generating possibilities afforded them by Open AI’s wunderkind chatbot-cum-virtual assistant. Others regard ChatGPT and similar AI-based writing tools with a purist’s disdain, believing they can only ever produce text that has had all the creative juices sucked out of it; a dusty, desiccated and above all derivative facsimile of authentic human writing.
As is so often the way with these things, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Yes, AI can help speed up and provide inspiration for the writing process; no, it cannot do all the heavy lifting for you – and nor should you expect it to. In this article, I want to set out my own thoughts on the usefulness, or otherwise, of AI writing tools in the context of a creative platform for which I spend a lot of time crafting my own content and helping others to do the same: LinkedIn.
Now, your initial reaction might be: “But hang on, I thought LinkedIn is for professional networking and business development?”
While this is certainly true, the fact is it takes a decent amount of creativity in your LinkedIn posting to be effective in achieving these two objectives. Because, as with all social media platforms, good content will always win out over bad on LinkedIn, driving up audience engagement and thus achieving the desired synergy effects of brand-building and lead-generation.
As you might expect from a product owned by Microsoft, one of OpenAI’s biggest investors, LinkedIn has not been tardy in introducing AI features to the platform, including writing tools for its paid users. These pop up as a ‘Write with AI’ prompt whenever a text box is opened, nominally putting a world of creative possibilities at the user’s fingertips.
I say ‘nominally’ because I ultimately must side with those critics of AI who decry the quality of the output from this technology, at least in its raw, initial iteration. In most instances, the AI’s work product is very far from anything you could call original, let alone human sounding. After all, there is a reason AI detectors can filter out most machine-generated content: it is robotic and impersonal; it uses words and phrases most human writers would never dain to - and it follows predictable patterns.
Then there is the issue affecting all current AI-based generative language tools, including those found on LinkedIn: their scope only extends as far as the materials they have been fed and ‘taught’. Ergo, they are incapable of generating a genuinely unique or new idea of their own, as they can only really provide content cobbled together from a vast array of building blocks harvested from other posts.
By logical extension, then, it would be a terrible idea to publish on your LinkedIn profile anything created exclusively with the platform’s AI writing tools. That’s because, like all established social media platforms, LinkedIn represents a crowded marketplace where only the best content is rewarded.
I work for and with lawyers, and LinkedIn is a virtual space where a huge percentage of the world’s legal profession hangs out. To be noticed amid the throngs of their colleagues, legal professionals must therefore post engaging content imbued with their personality, experiences, thoughts, perspectives and opinions – in other words, they must write posts that truly appeal to the appetites of a discerning audience with plenty of other options on their plate.
“AI writing tools can assist you with brainstorming, collating information, generating interesting headlines and producing rough outlines. In most instances though, AI product is far from anything you could call original, let alone human sounding. It’s robotic and impersonal; it uses words and phrases most human writers never would - and it follows predictable patterns.”
“AI writing tools can assist you with brainstorming, collating information, generating interesting headlines and producing rough outlines. In most instances though, AI product is far from anything you could call original, let alone human sounding. It’s robotic and impersonal; it uses words and phrases most human writers never would - and it follows predictable patterns.”
And in such a hyper-competitive environment, it would be almost childishly naive at best, and unforgivably lazy at worst, to assume that a stodgy, lifeless-sounding, AI-generated ‘click and collect’ post could ever cut the mustard.
I admit that, thus far, it sounds like I am entirely on the side of the aforementioned purists, given my firm belief that successful LinkedIn content must always read as if it were hand-crafted in order to catch people’s attention for the right reasons (I have come across a fair few posts, and many more comments, that are so obviously AI-generated as to be comical, though not in a good way). So where, if anywhere, do I believe lies the value of our current crop of AI writing tools?
To my mind, the secret to making AI work for you in the context of LinkedIn is to use it exclusively for the things it is good at. When used correctly, AI writing tools can assist you with brainstorming, collating information, generating interesting headlines and producing rough outlines – that is to say, they can help you with almost everything but the actual writing.
Let us take the example of crafting a LinkedIn profile. A polished profile speaks volumes about your professionalism and attention to detail. And – if used wisely – LinkedIn’s AI tools can help you construct one.
They can suggest useful keywords and phrases for boosting your profile in search results; highlight inconsistencies and gaps in your information; assess the clarity and conciseness of your profile to ensure it effectively communicates your skills and experience; provide insights into how well you are conveying your branding and unique value proposition; evaluate the relevance of your profile to your target audience; check spelling and grammar, and (ironically) suggest better ways to word sentences for readability.
These are not negligible advantages, which can also be deployed to powerful effect when seeking to produce pithy, standout headlines or mash up ideas for a unique, off-the-wall post. And it falls outside the scope of this article to discuss the genuine usefulness of LinkedIn’s research tools, which present some real opportunities to improve your branding and messaging on the platform.
However, the bottom line remains that you can never entrust the actual business of writing to AI as we currently know it.
If you do use LinkedIn’s writing tools to provide you with content ideas, it’s then vital you edit and refine the AI’s output to remove all its robotic cadences and inject the necessary personal touches, in order to make the writing sound like you rather than like the weird echo of a million other voices – or like some vestigial deus ex machina infinitely reflected between opposing funhouse mirrors.