content writing
In today’s day and age, technological intervention rarely leaves any sphere of life unaffected. This advancement has also stretched its reach to the content writing world. The current scenario is witnessing an emerging growth of AI writing tools that whip up written content with just the click of a few buttons. While this invention has bloomed the industry’s growth, some people have reservations against this contrivance. This has sparked a never-ending debate between AI writing vs human writing and which approach is better. There is no right or wrong concluding answer to these arguments. Each point holds some truth that can not be denied or overlooked.
How is AI Affecting the Writing Industry?
Artificial intelligence, also famous for its acronym AI, is the ability of computers to function with the capacity of human intellect. This branch of computer science aims to make electronic devices mimic human capabilities to perform everyday tasks. This is done to bring speed, convenience, and efficiency to processes. As we read above, these processes have extended their reach to content writing. AI writing has noticeably altered how writers function and work to create content. Some people have overtly welcomed this invention as an ally to their careers.
On the other hand, many believe these devices will gradually degrade the quality and standard of the skill. Both sides are justifiable in their ways. Formulating an unbiased and concrete answer of whether AI is a good thing for writers is a tricky process. There is a lot of subjectivity and variation in the consensus of the data gathered on this question. Hence, the effect of AI on the writing industry is multifaceted and highly dependent on individual preferences.
Pros and Cons of AI Tool
We will now closely examine both sides of the AI writing tools and how writers perceive their functioning. This will help us gain a deeper understanding of the AI writing vs human writing debate.
Pros of AI Writing Tools
- Efficiency and scalability
Since artificial intelligence works at a skillfully swift speed, it can serve more efficient, practical, and precise results. An AI tool will generate what you ask for. It aims to comply with your demands and requirements. You can be as niche and specific as you wish to be. Word limit, topic, mood, tone, and delivery are just some aspects you can direct as per your needs. This feature helps you to be regulated and customise the size of your outputs.
- Cost-effective
Many AI tools offer their services at affordable rates for weekly, monthly, and even annual subscriptions. They are discounted and strategically priced to attract more consumers. These packages are economically cheaper than paying a writer monthly or per project basis. Therefore, managing costs is an added benefit for people looking to access content services without burdening their wallets. The subscriptions also offer customised plans based on word count and per-day usage. This feature also helps users manage their costs on their needed requirements.
- Improves SEO
SEO, also known as search engine optimization, is the core principle behind almost all content writing practices. It is a strategic way to formulate your content in a manner that helps it reach the top ranks on search engines. This practise is becoming increasingly famous among bloggers, copywriters, website writers, and social media managers. Because AI stays in tune with SEO trends, you can create seamlessly optimised content. It looks after keyword placement and density, which are the vital components of SEO.
- Overcome writer’s block
Writer’s block refers to a psychological phenomenon wherein a writer cannot think of new ideas or inspirations for writing. It is a common occurrence in human minds that can happen for many reasons. These can include burnout, lack of motivation, losing interest, or fear of rejection. Since AI does not face such challenges, the technological support can be utilised to overcome this slump. The tools can hint you towards ideas, complete any pending projects and assist you through your creative dry spells.
Cons of AI Writing Tools
- Quality concerns and possible plagiarism
Since AI-generated content focuses more on quantity, it can face issues with its overall quality. You may find fluffing or word stuffing, irrelevant or incorrect information, and rote content. There is a high likelihood of coming across plagiarised content. Plagiarism is referred to when someone else’s work is credited as yours. Since AI tools collect their data from existing data, you may find some results directly copied from others. This causes a massive breach in the creative process of writing.
- Algorithms devalue content
Since AI is designed to keep in trend with the changing trends, it may need to pay attention to the standard of the content. This implies that the content being generated by AI may prioritise the rules and terms proposed by algorithms over the content quality. Such an occurrence can result in unsatisfactory and underworked written content. It also results in a lack of attention to the value of content and diminishes its importance.
- Lack of creativity and personalization
Writing is a highly subjective and creative skill that allows customizations at your convenience. However, with AI interventions, this creativity takes a back seat. Because these tools and technologies work on ordered input, it gets challenging to expect too much skillfulness. The generated outputs get robotic, monotone, and less engaging than usual. This is especially true for layman’s writing styles, such as copywriting, newsletters, promotional content, scripts, or academic writing.
- Human editing is still required
Regardless of how much content is generated by an AI tool, there is a need for human intervention. A writer/editor may need to review the content to identify linguistic or grammatical errors, factual accuracy, fluency, and engagement. They may even have to run checks to detect plagiarism and test the generated content’s readability. All these steps require additional time and labour despite technological inputs, which also need monetary and time-bound inputs.
- Can’t generate new ideas
While artificial intelligence is reputed to be novel and unique, it lies low compared to human creativity. Because AI functions on the ideas and inputs stored by human manufacturing, it cannot produce unique thoughts. Human intellect can mould or invent things from even the most minor ideas. Computers and technology do not exhibit this capability and can not efficiently make unique ideas. This is an obstacle in fields that require artistic input.
Pros and Cons of Human Writing
After learning the positives and negatives of the AI content world, let us also analyse the two sides offered by human writing skills.
Pros of Human Writing
- Develop New Ideas
The creativity and novelty of the human mind are something that no technology has been able to replicate. Human perspectives are highly objective, dynamic, and observable. These skills help in curating never-seen-before and distinctive innovations for content. Since AI takes help from pre-existing ideas and projects, there is a lack of originality. This occurrence is overruled in human writing conditions as it heavily relies on one’s creative inputs. It also enhances the content quality and brings a breeze of freshness.
- Quality Assurance
When a writer organically curates content, it affirms a high standard of work quality. There is a structured process behind the process of writing new ideas. A thorough content creation process involves understanding, research, trial-and-error, modification, and proofreading. These processes take time, effort, and patience, which one can not expect from artificially synthesised technology. With human involvement, you can expect minute, precise and well-structured results as each aspect is intricately dealt with. This attention to detail is a sure-shot way to help you get good-quality outputs.
- Create Plagiarism-Free Content
Plagiarism is an unethical practice wherein an individual wrongly claims someone else’s work as their own. This is a prime concern, particularly in content writing, as it is easy to manipulate the due credits of who writes what. Many tools are made to detect plagiarism in any written content. When you create original content, it is easy to dodge any plag threats. You can be assured of staying safe from any allegations of stealing content when you write by yourself.
Cons of Human Writing
- You Get What You Pay For
When you hire a content writer, you will realise that they work on a wage basis. This implies that you need to pay them in advance for the services you wish to obtain. Doing so defines the limits of the work they will do for you. For this reason, human content writing is bounded by the pay offered. Wanting to extract any other creation or modification will require extra payment. This approach can be disadvantageous for those working on a tight budget.
- Struggle to Find a Good Writer
Finding a qualified, experienced, and good-quality writer can be overwhelming. The people you approach may be underqualified, phoney, money-minded, or not equipped to create the specific content that you are looking for. You will have to run screening tests and in-depth interviews to find a relevant fit. All these complications can lead to a waste of valuable time and a lack of a firm guarantee of getting what you are searching for.
- Uncertain Working Conditions
In the real world, obstacles and challenges are inevitable. You may also face them when thinking of writing your content. Your work environment may not always be in sync with you when you are in a creative zone. Technical barriers such as poor internet and insufficient work hardware can make it difficult to work smoothly. Other challenges can include stress, lack of time, burnout, and unclear instructions on how to go about a specific project can also contribute to this uncertainty.
- Time Management
When you are working on a qualitative skill, like content by yourself, it can get time-consuming. Researching, brainstorming, structuring, formulating, writing, editing and proofreading are all the mandatory steps of creating written content. Each of these is a labour-intensive procedure. Since the human brain can face difficulties, challenges, and hurdles, some steps may take more time than others. This can result in mismanaged time, missed deadlines, and messed up schedules.
With this list of arguments between AI writing vs human writing, we can formulate fair and unbiased ideas of which style is better. Everyone is different, hence, subjectivity in preferences is an inevitable occurrence.
Conclusion
Ultimately, we can conclude that the ongoing AI writing vs human writing debate has no definite winner. Both parties have their own reasons to love or hate AI for writing content. We have discussed in great detail all the plausible points of both ends of the discussion. Despite the difference of opinion, it is obvious that human writing carries a valuable importance that computerised outputs can’t compete with. The creativity, thought, effort and observations coming from the human mind have a charm that technology can hardly replicate. No amount of technological inventions can replace the authenticity and integrity of human writing.
