Why Artificial Intelligence and Content Creation Won’t be Human-Free…Yet

It'd be great to think that artificial intelligence wasn't already a significant part of our world. That behind every word you consume is a person. That machines don't precisely target you online, or that social media arguments are with humans, not overseas bots. But artificial intelligence and content creation exist in these spaces, and AI is changing how we experience online marketing and social media.

The real concern is not if it's happening but whether it should happen. Should we be putting artificial intelligence and content creation together? What benefits could it have? And more importantly, what harm could it cause?

What Is Artificial Intelligence?

We're not going to get too deep here since this technology is quite advanced. Still, we can sum it up: in content creation, AI uses various algorithms to collect, analyze, learn from, and then use data to produce new content. And that content can be about anything: text, images, sounds, and even video. Additionally, artificial intelligence can build out extensive data reports that once required hours of human research and effort. AI can get this job done in seconds rather than weeks, months, or years.

As AI and machine learning (ML) become more prevalent, the algorithms within become more complex and efficient. That's the key advantage of using AI and ML in any area of your business. And many companies have incorporated AI into their services to streamline processes for themselves or their customers.

How Do Artificial Intelligence and Content Creation Relate?

The connection between artificial intelligence and content creation lies with the data. With guidance (and human input), algorithms can develop new content that considers massive amounts of online data and written information, all within moments. This function defines AI content generation and is a hot topic among marketers and content creators alike.

Turning Complex Data Into Tangible Copy

What takes humans ages to research, analyze, evaluate, and synthesize becomes a quick input-output process when utilizing artificial intelligence. So far, the most useful part of the interaction between AI and content creation has been its ability to develop keyword topics, gap analyses, and writing prompts. Since data analysis is a weak point for human thinking, using machine learning and artificial intelligence to create content ideas proves incredibly useful, both in terms of quantity and quality of output.

Hyper-Targeting and Personalization

Even more, this same data-consuming advantage helps marketers and content creators to write more targeted and personalized content for customers. In fact, AI has some distinct possibilities for revolutionizing the process of targeting ads and content. Sorting through demographic data is time-consuming, but AI makes it easier to apply overwhelming amounts of information to a problem.

Consistent Brand Image Everywhere

User-generated content is a significant factor in consumer purchasing decisions today, and its influence is only growing. Unbranded advertising can come in handy, but it takes time to collect all the content that references your brand. And it takes even more time to figure out how your brand is perceived outside your company's walls. Artificial intelligence offers a shortcut to taking your unofficial online presence from disorganized to strategic.

Will Human Writing Jobs Disappear With Artificial Intelligence and Content Creation?

The short answer is: no. The long answer is: it depends.

We need to remember that artificial intelligence, while great with concrete information, facts, and data, is still not where it needs to be to make creative writing sound natural. Even with all the technological advances in Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Natural Language Generation (NLG), AI and ML still can't figure out how to make their creative powers work within the frameworks of convention, voice, and flow. In simpler terms, they generate content that sounds almost—but not quite—human.

When storytelling is a crucial component of your brand (and it should be), then AI will disappoint. Long-form content developed by AI reads choppy, and incorporating a degree of emotional intelligence keeps these algorithms from sounding human (for now). 

This isn't shocking. Jasper, one of the most well-known AI content creation companies today, admits that its artificial intelligence tools are just that: tools. And the AI industry doesn't claim it will replace all human input and direction anytime soon. Instead, human guidance remains vital in making AI work well with content creation. It's up to people to give the AI bots the correct information to learn and develop the right output for a specific need. And feedback is a crucial part of that learning process.

Ultimately, artificial intelligence will not take over content creation for the foreseeable future. Instead, marketers, content creators, and writers should consider AI and ML for what they were designed to be: tools in a growing arsenal geared to scale content production.

What We See for the Future of Artificial Intelligence and Content Creation

Given the state of things, content creators, social media managers, and copywriters should probably not expect the same job description in the next five to ten years. Things will change, without a doubt, but these jobs won't disappear.

Today's content creators are just that: creators. But blending artificial intelligence with content creation will shift these roles towards overarching strategy and conceptualization.

So, rather than writing articles by hand for each client, you might find a content creator feeding keywords, strategies, and topics into AI engines to draft content. Then these same people will edit and proofread, ensuring the content stays on target and between the ditches.

Without human input, teaching, and feedback, AI content creation will remain rigid, unconventional, and, well…weird. Perhaps with enough human guidance, AI and content creation may one day reach a point where NLG can achieve human results. But for now, and for a long time coming, humans are still ahead of the content creation singularity.

So expect content agencies to remain as carbon-based lifeforms for now (we are entirely human at Clixable). The machines still need us.