The Machines are taking over…
As I go to “write” my new post about bragging the blogging AI generator Rytr presents several options of how I want to set the tone of my blog.
Do I want to sound convincing?
Or maybe I should make it an appreciative piece?
Scrolling down I see the option funny. Now I’m curious to know what the sense of humour of a machine is like.
I get presented with other options like what keywords I want including, and how factual the content should be.
I click the button ‘Ryte for me’ and away we go!
The orange button turns to show it is processing something, and hey presto! I have a paragraph for my post:
The best way to handle a bragger is to stay calm and ask them for more details. If they are bragging about something that you can’t relate to, change the subject. If they are bragging about something that you have in common, try to one-up them and then change the subject.
Some people might feel like bragging when they get a new job or win an award, but it’s often better not to do so.
The topic of ‘How do you handle a bragger’ according to the AI of Rytr
I can’t say the paragraph is a barrel of laughs, and I’d never advise dealing with a bragger, by trying to one-up them –
But hey! I keep being told that artificial intelligence is the future of blogging right?
….
…Right?…
What is Artificial Intelligence?
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a term to describe a process to create an intelligent machine that can mimic (or exceed) human intelligence.
To create artificial intelligence, a computer would be programmed to recognise patterns or use algorithms to simulate the way a human brain would learn.
Once a machine has the ability to understand information, it can then make decisions on its own, solving problems and completing tasks without human intervention.
Like a real human, artificial intelligence can improve over time learning from it’s mistakes and improving, giving it the potential to become smarter and more efficient.
How is Artificial Intelligence being used in blogging?
What role can artificial intelligence play in blogging?
The most obvious ways is in the form of automated blog posts – there are a few free and paid tools available online now that can analyse a line of text, and produce content.
Jasper, the AI writing tool boasts it can:
- Create original content that ranks for SEO
- Finish your draft 10x faster
- End writers block
- Scale up your content faster
That certainly sounds good for the blogger who doesn’t like to write the content and would rather spend more time promoting the content and engaging with readers.
Wait? What’s the point of blogging if you’re just going to get artificial intelligence to write for you?
Good question – for the ‘hobby blogger’ I would say there is no point, as part of the pleasure of blogging is putting your thoughts and ideas together.
For the blogger who is doing it for another purpose – such as using it as a method to promote a product or service, it can save time having to write hundreds of posts on the desired subject matter.
If people are going to start using artificial intelligence to write their blogs, what’s the point?
As a human who writes all his own blog posts, there is something demoralising about attention to your posts being pushed aside by a computer, that have written a similar sized post in seconds!
For example, a popular post I wrote that brings me a lot of search engine traffic is How To Deal With A Bragger, but with it’s subject matter I could see this easily getting replaced by an AI generated article.
Knowing that what I write is so easy to replace, makes me want to quit blogging tomorrow.
But then I remember why I started in the first place, not just to share ideas with strangers, but also to compress my own ideas that have done wonders to helping my long term wellbeing and development.
Could artificial intelligence reduce plagiarism?
In a post from earlier this year I vented my frustrations that a bunch of my posts had been copied word for word.
Why do people steal the hard work of others? Because writing blog posts take a lot of time and effort to create – if you have a site you want to draw people in, it might seem a good idea therefore to do this.
The downside (aside from being highly unethical), the thief’s get caught out, they get reported, and they have a low reputation, and the site gets shut down.
This is not a sustainable way of creating an online brand.
However with artificial intelligence offering blog posts in a matter of seconds, maybe this is an alternative?
Using Artificial Intelligence to write blogs in your sector or niche
In my professional capacity I’m required to write blogs and various social media content.
With many demands on my time, I began to explore how artificial intelligence could outsource this task to write for the sector I work in.
As I work in healthcare – for the NHS in England, I was excited for it’s potential to save me lots of time.
Unfortunately I was disappointed to see it struggle to understand niche industry terms, and the content it produced was generic, written from the perspective of the US healthcare system, so for my ask – artificial intelligence was useless!
The competitive advantage we have on Artificial Intelligence
From the offerings I’ve seen of blog writing artificial intelligence, the technology is still in it’s early stages, and require human input to polish before even considering publication.
And if you have 100 people request articles typing in the same search criteria, say “how to handle a bragger” are they going to be seeing the same 100 blog posts?
This highlights our big competitive advantage us human bloggers have, our uniqueness, and our humanity offering the ability to apply personal voices.
You might not be capable of generating 50+ blog articles on the same topic in a day, but you can focus on quality, being true to your values.
The lesson – when writing future blog articles make sure to add lots of your personality – write like you talk, share personal stories and learning, throw in your sense of humour – anything that will avoid making your content sound like it was written by a robot!
Final musings on Artificial Intelligence
I am slightly worried the direction artificial intelligence takes blogging.
There is already a growing sentiment that “blogging is dead”, and that’s from the crowded perspective of new content being created by humans. A machine that never rests, could potentially make it harder than ever for anyone to see you’re work.
This worry calls for a renaissance of what makes blogging great – interesting people having something worth saying!
So, if you’re looking for the REAL big blog trend of 2023, look no further than meeting the demands of those seeking quality writing, focused on real, human perspectives!
Wishing you the best in your success
James @Perfect Manifesto
Copyright © 2023 James M.Lane perfectmanifesto.com
Perfect Manifesto 
Hi James, I was reading this again , Are Rytr and Jasper free or paid AI? I have been reading many articles on AI , and on ChapGTP and a lot of people are saying or thinking no blogging is not dead, Search engines, and platforms that are writing platforms will need to be able to detect if AI or a human has written it. But, for those of on WP or who are running our own blog that choice will be with us, and it comes down to us – and that when the question comes into play – what is the point – if we cant be bothered to write our own post, why blog?
Do you know of any free AI tools
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Jasper you pay, Rytr is free to an extent – you get X number of free credits a month and when it runs out you have to pay – I find you burn through the introduction ones quick especially as you’re new and discovering it’s capabilities you end up typing in lots of things just to see what it comes back with.
There was a free one I discovered but it’s result were really generic and the content it was writing was the most basic things you’d find on first page of a google search, that if you saw it you’d realise that blogging/writing/or any content crafted by humans is far from dead!
ChatGPT is the best free one, but because it’s so popular and has more uses than writing it’s down a lot.
And it’s true that Google etc are putting in detections to pick up on AI – not sure how good that is though.
It’s a good question why bother? I think some will do it out of greed. Medium the supposed site for ‘real writers’ seems to be plagued with AI content, but they have a monetisation programme which is compromising the integrity of the content on there.
I think more than ever this emphasises the need for real, human voices with personality, humour, flaws, interesting anecdotes, and a step away from all the trash about hitting key words, search engine optimisation etc. Just write what you enjoy, and keep working to get the people who will love your authentic nature.
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Thank for your detailed response. I just wanted to get a bit clued up on AI. I am out of touch and as you know a bit, I thoughts I would ask. I am not bothered by it. Just interested. The joke is I use grammarly to help me write a bit better – I only found that grammarian is an AI tool after I have been using it for a year plus.. lol
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And just found the AI tool I was talking about, you’ll see why it’s basic: https://www.partnyai.com/essay (I was asking it to write a healthcare tech blog and it started quoting made up names!)
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Lol… thank you for this.
I studied ai 30 years ago. it was all text book. 🙄. I don’t like the the idea if it takes jobs away from people.
I am so outvof touch with AI and as you wrote your article I thought I would ask you.
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Enticing and amazing post James. I have to practice Artificial intelligence in my blogging but not writing like a Machine that is programmed to act and do as it is told but using clever thinking, lateral thinking and focusing on quality writing than quantity.
Also, being unique by showing your personality as a Blogger is one of the best ways to write amazing content. I understand with Professional Bloggers you can’t imitate humor because it is seen as unethical and unprofessional since you have a job of promoting products/services to customers or clients in need of such services. For the hobby Blogger yes they can use humor.
As for me I am both a hobby blogger and a Professional Blogger. I once created a blog for a fashion agency and that project was a success at first as we even got sponsorship for the project.
As for my hobby blogging, I enjoy writing about my niche ‘Fashion & Style for men’ , this blog is a reflection of who I am in real life, a Fashion Blogger, ambitious writer, creative person, Website Designer, lover of biscuits and a content creator with an eye for detail.
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Thank you so much Mthobisi – for my own experiments with Artificial Intelligence, I find part of the challenge is giving it the appropriate instructions to get the results your looking for!
Humour is always a challenge – with the social media accounts I manage, I have to be careful what I say as it can be taken the wrong way.
The hobby blog is a real opportunity to break down into the detail of who is behind the blog, a distinct advantage professional blogs don’t have.
Thank you very much for commenting 🙂
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You are welcome James and happy holidays in advance🌲👏👏💯
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I wasn’t aware that there are tools that can automatically produce blogs, sounds awful.
But I think you kind of answered your initial question by the end of your blog, we all have our own individual stories to tell and; God or science forbid, they couldn’t be created artificially. If it’s just an information blog then maybe it could work, but ultimately people would just stop be drawn way from blogging completely that didn’t have authenticity.
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It’s pretty crazy Paul – there is something called ChatGPT that’s got popular over the last few weeks, that I hadn’t even seen when I wrote this post, but it can be scary quick.
I keep testing out AI as I’m curious when I write new posts, to see what it’s take would be on the same subject – I’m biased, but I still think mine is better, the AI post reads like the bland generic stuff you get for quick answers to questions like you get on Google, but maybe it’s working more for search engine results than personality.
With my blog I like the flexibility to share more personal stories – which might not have the mass search engine appeal, but needs to be done to show a differentiation to the mass big corporate website out there where you don’t know who the person is.
But – I also like providing information posts, where it’s stuff for search engines designed to solve problems – the key difference with AI is from me I always litter in personal perspectives and anecdotes!
Authenticity is key – in 2023, I’m doing more to emphasise there is a person behind the words than ever before!
Thanks for your comment Paul 🙂
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Me again. I think it’s so important to remember our why.. why we started blogging. That question will then stop is blogging dead. It could be dead for some and alive for others.
Is reading dead? It is for some and fully alive for others.
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I think as long as there are people like you and I who have that clear why and a drive to keeping expressing ourselves through this medium blogging will live on!
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James, excellent post and like your researched evidence.
I studied AI at uni 30 years ago. It was all text book. And so dry. And it the thing everywhere. AI can only be as good as the data, the knowledge base. The USA is always going to way more data, use cases , that I am not surprised its all US medical advice not suited for our NHS.
The economy is in a state, there are people not working because of long term sick, or covid made them retire early, meaning there are missing people from the economy. Therefore economy struggles. And so AI us going to make the economy better with even more people not working.
I think and I hope blogging isn’t dead. When I see the wp.com community I feel blogging us a live and kicking. And I don’t think anyone would use AI to write posts- what us the point.
But there are cases for it as you say. And maybe handy for small businesses. But I’d the AI system are US based then it us not suitable world wide.
And as you say AI is perfect fir the lazy blogger who steals other people’s work. They don’t need to steal.
Great Post, well research and written. And full of your personality.
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The data is certainly a challenge. I remember reading an infographic about the capabilities of AI and it said that the technology would be able to write a new York Times best seller in about 80 years time.
From the NHS perspective there is a lot of work to be done to standardise the data, along with being able to share that across different care settings, then we have to consider if the NHS would risk putting too much investment in researching and developing AI technology, as failed digital projects using taxpayers money never goes down well in the press!
The technology drive has certainly been influenced by the impact of Covid – just when we are got told to work from home there were questions if the infrastructure would cope with everyone at home! We know different now.
From a community perspective blogging should live on. Those who have blogs to promote a business who have traditionally paid freelancers I could see utilising these tools instead.
And thank you – with the subject matter I was trying to get in the extra personality to avoid any doubts that it was not written by AI!
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My question is: Why are we human beings inventing things to replace human beings?
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Good question – in the short term this could automate some tasks. In healthcare for example AI is being looked at to identify trends in patients medical conditions.
It’s interesting and concerning at the same time – I think there is ethics to consider in certain situations and depending on the situation ask “we can do it, but should we do it?”
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I’m feeling creeped out that AI could potentially replace some very human-centric posts!
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I’m wondering what I’ve read that has been written by AI. I’ve done experimenting with the free tools and find that the quality needs a human to edit it to bring to life (and take longer than just writing from scratch!)
Maybe disclaimers that posts were written by a real person are needed in future!
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We well may need to put on such disclaimers! We’re already having difficulty with fake news and twisted facts. If AI were programmed to write in that vein, (and perhaps it has already been used for that), we face more and more people becoming brainwashed, because AI will perfect itself to do exactly that! It slices both ways. Just because it can be done, doesn’t mean it should be!
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