What’s Artificial about Intelligence?

We recently produced a blog titled Achieving the Best School Web Design with Concept4. I say we, in reality 90% of the work was done by artificial intelligence (AI) courtesy of Anyword! Anyword is a copywriting tool that uses AI to generate unique marketing text. Simply using the free basic features of this blog generation software I was able to quickly put together the article of my choice. A little bit of tweaking later I had a very reasonable blog post. Five hundred sensible, relevant, almost perfectly structured words about the subject of my choice. I was quite impressed to be honest but the Luddite in me has many concerns, not least of which being what our friends at Google make of this kind of thing. 

I’LL GET ME COAT!

My initial reaction though is one of concern for the integrity of writers, the value of the written word formulated in a real brain. Human beings like myself who write words for their business, indeed for their pleasure, are potentially to be replaced by a quick fix solution. The world is changing, has gone online and is evolving again. So is it time for me to get my coat and ready myself for retirement. I hear there are some very competitive crown green bowling leagues locally! No, not yet at least and the fact I needed to do that bit of tweaking gives me some comfort though in truth I was only using the very basic features of the software. Interestingly Danny, our SEO guru here at Concept4 was also impressed, in fact he felt it was as good as some paid for content. He also felt it could provide beneficial additional keyword mixes in our blog production. Having said all that we both thought it was missing something significant– character.

A MORE ENGAGING READ?

I enjoy writing these blogs but the process is more enjoyable and worthwhile when I can write about something personal or that I care about. That way I can demonstrate passion, empathy, maybe even comedy. As solid as the AI content is it does lack something of a human angle, an approach that engages the reader and hopefully pulls them in. But who am I writing for anyway? Certainly myself. No one reads my stuff more than I do! For Google? Yes, I want to interest the interface oracle that guides our online existence. I also want to demonstrate knowledge and expertise on our website and be regularly updating it with useful, interesting content. Ultimately then, I am still targeting my writing at customers and potential customers who are tuned into our services and have an interest in our business activities and offers.

FUTURE PLANS

I really do feel there is nothing artificial about human intelligence. Its diversity, quirkiness and fathomless depth would be so hard to accurately manufacture or simulate. That being said I would not rule out using an AI tool again in this way to generate additional content or perhaps start me off on a topic I was less familiar with. I like to think that whilst Google will acknowledge it, over time such content would be easily identified and maybe downgraded in relevance. For now though I will passionately confirm that I will continue to write blogs myself, make notes, draw charts on my blog whiteboard and use Word to type paragraphs of ramblings from my unique brain. If you could continue to read this original, yet somewhat imperfect content, that would be appreciated.