Hey, copybot, write me a blog about AI tools. And make it good.
by Mark Reed, Creative Director (probably)
In June 2022, a Google engineer working on an AI language chatbot called LaMDA made a claim that earned him the sack. He believed the AI chatbot was able to express thoughts and feelings equivalent to that of a 9-year-old human. He declared that LaMDA was sentient. Google swiftly placed the engineer on leave.
Read through the transcript of that AI conversation, and you’d be forgiven for being a little alarmed at some of LaMDA’s seemingly self-aware responses. It might even spark fears of a robot uprising. But for most, AI language tools are just headless chickens without the ability to understand or form original ideas, express different tones, or harness the nuances of language. They couldn’t go toe-to-toe with a human, right?
We’re safe. For now.
Copywriters are still miles ahead in their ability to communicate compelling narratives and understand context. But AI tools are doing what they do best: learning. And at a frightening pace. So, should wordy folk be quaking in their boots?
Right now, AI offers nothing more than a great supplementary tool. Platforms like copy.ai and jasper.ai are brilliant aids for generating content – from subject lines and social posts to blogs and product descriptions. Great for overcoming blank-page syndrome, but the content ALWAYS needs more than a little help from a human writer before publishing.
But AI can already work faster and make more complex decisions than humans, at a fraction of the cost. So, it seems inevitable that AI tools will eventually replace content creators. The technology could in fact displace whole swathes of the creative industry. So the question we should be asking isn’t “is my job safe?”, but “how do I integrate AI into my work?”.
AI has entered the chat
Chat GPT, the copy-generating AI everyone’s chatting about, has made a huge splash in just about every area of content creation, and is already being dubbed the Google Killer.
Having absorbed every bit of content published on the internet between 2016 and 2019, its dataset is vast. It uses sophisticated code to comb the internet and generate original content in seconds, often with flawless spelling and grammar. The tech is still developing (this is GPT-3), but even in its current form, savvy marketers can utilise it – and others like it – to great effect.
Take SEO content. Invariably, the first step to writing keyword-driven copy is time-consuming research. When Chat GPT pulls information from across the web (albeit without reference to sources) in under 30 seconds, paying a human to spend hours doing the same job starts to feel like a splurge. So, whilst AI generated copy will still need some heavy wrangling to sound ‘human’, using it to gather information can save time.
For businesses, AI language tools present an opportunity to save time and money on content creation. For some, that might be enough. But with AI tools charged with the heavy lifting, ambitious brands could redistribute marketing budgets rather than slash them.
That could mean bigger ideas, smarter strategy, tighter planning – and a better ROI. All without moving a dot in the marketing budget. This is the true opportunity that AI tools present, and it will set brands apart from those who simply pocket the difference.
AI language tools like Chat GPT have made huge strides in recent years. And although they won’t replace human creativity immediately, they will eventually. As content creators, agencies, and brands, onboarding AI into our creative processes may soon become a necessity. And those who don’t may be left to languish in obscurity.
Now you’re asking yourself: did a human write this blog?
I suppose there’s no way of knowing. Can you live with that? If not, you might have to resign yourself to the computer-generated, human-honed hybrid that much online content is likely to become. Because there are many advantages to Chat GPT and its ilk, even in their infancy, and with many AI tools now available to try for free, those advantages are there for the taking.
If you want to chat (to a human) about AI and the opportunities for your business, get in touch with our team.
