Is it OK to Let a Machine Write This Article?
Is it OK to Let a Machine Write This Article?
To celebrate Labor Day, I thought I would share with you a blog post that was created (almost) entirely by “AI” technology.
Except for the introduction sections, this blog post was created by “AI.”
Including the title. I was having a hard time coming up with one, thankfully the computer came up with one for me.
Even the illustration. I’m nowhere near that good an artist.
Our technology leaders have put vast resources into creating massive “neural networks” that act as pattern sponges, sucking up some of the estimated 10 zettabytes1 of data accumulated worldwide, then restructuring it into patterns that emulate coherent human writing in response to a few prompts. This sponging and regurgitating is one of the technologies called “Artificial Intelligence.”
A monstrous expenditure of mental, physical, and energy resources produced these automated tools that transform this astronomical amount of human-generated thought and data into low-value creativity-free commodity word arrangements. The tools streamline and accelerate “content” generation to eliminate the inconveniences of effort, time, or human labor and creativity. Sometimes this “content” is constructed to appeal to other neural networks like search engines and social media algorithm engines, to promote its selection by algorithms for presentation to “consumers.”
The ultimate purpose of the low-cost “content” is to capture a time slice of human attention with re-synthesized text that presumably contains at least some rudimentary information of interest to the viewer. Once captured, the human’s attention will be presented with carefully selected stimuli, “targeted” by yet other neural networks that gauge the human’s receptivity to them partially based on the computer-generated content of the page. The selected stimuli is intended to motivate the person to engage in some behavior that generates revenue for some entity that had paid to have the “buy/click/subscribe now!” stimuli created by some other neural network.
Well done!
Now, since the whole motivation for this post is Labor Day, take a few minutes now to give your attention to something useful (as opposed to reading the computer-generated rest of this blog post) – maybe one of these will capture your attention:
Go to Blue Tent to view a list of progressive organizations with unionized workers, and get some more information about them.
Common Dreams has long been a supporter of progressive causes and is on the front line of workers’ rights
Go to https://swisscows.com (ps, don’t install the browser add-on) and search for “progressive labor rights organizations.”
Send some money to those non-algorithmic organizations, and their intelligent people, to help them in their work.
Enjoy your Labor Day Weekend! Especially if you’re a copywriter. Maybe babysitting is in your future. And now that I have had the computer generate my content for the search engines I can take the rest of the holiday off.
So now, “if you’ve ever wondered how AI is going to transform the world, you can read all about it here.”
The rest of this blog copy is entirely generated by “copy.ai” - no editing was done. The image is from the Wonder app - which is terribly addictive fun, by the way.
It's Time We Acknowledge AI Content Generation Is About To Replace Thinking
Introduction
You know that feeling you get when you sit down to write a blog post and nothing comes? You've got an idea, but it's just not "there" yet. You need more data or inspiration, or maybe some time to process what you already have. Well, good news! In the near future, machine learning algorithms will be able to generate stories just like this one—and they'll do it faster than anyone else could ever imagine.
Content creation is becoming ever-more automated and algorithm-based.
The automation of content creation is happening in many areas. For example, Google’s latest AI tools can write readable news articles and blog posts. The company has even released a tool that allows anyone to type a few paragraphs about any topic, and then create an article from scratch using Google’s automated writing tools.
The automation of content creation extends far beyond news articles and blog posts. Algorithms are now being used to create job application letters and poetry, songs and movie scripts—and these are just the beginning! As technology improves machine learning algorithms for automating this kind of work, it will become less expensive for companies to generate new types of content like never before.
This automation extends to blog posts, news headlines, job application letters, poetry, songs, movie scripts and beyond.
You may have read that automated software is taking jobs such as those of travel agents, journalists and even doctors. But this automation extends to blog posts, news headlines, job application letters, poetry, songs, movie scripts and beyond.
The good news is that there are some types of work that will never be automated: things like baby-sitting or doing your taxes. The bad news is that there are many types of work that probably should be automated—but won't be because it would cost companies more money than they're willing to spend on innovation or training their employees to do better work.
Tech companies are constantly improving machine learning algorithms to automate this type of content creation.
Machine learning algorithms are being used for a variety of purposes, from creating artwork to generating music. A company called Deep Mind is using machine learning algorithms to create text descriptions that help blind people navigate their surroundings.
At the same time, tech companies are constantly improving machine learning algorithms to automate this type of content creation. Some companies even use AI assistants (like Siri) as part of their workflow, allowing their employees to work in more complex ways than they could otherwise achieve by themselves.
In the future, it may be possible for computers and software agents not only to create content based on what they've learned about human psychology but also learn how best
to optimize this process even further—by making sure that each piece of content produced has enough appeal so as not only generate revenue but also keep users coming back again and again!
One example is AI-generated news stories written by a computer program named Heliograf.
One example is AI-generated news stories written by a computer program named Heliograf. The program learns from reading thousands of articles, then uses what it has learned to write new ones. In tests, people couldn’t tell the difference between these stories and those written by human journalists.
But even if you have no interest in writing, this same technology could be applied elsewhere to replace another part of your job: content creation. If you work in marketing or communications and spend most of your time putting together presentations or other written material for clients, Heliograf could do that for you instead—and likely better than you can (at least right now).
Robots can only write about things they've been programmed to know about, though.
But a robot can only write about things it's been programmed to know about. At the end of the day, robots aren't sentient beings; they're machines that run on software. It's easy to forget that sometimes because we've seen so many sci-fi films set in a world full of sentient robots. But just like any computer program, a robot can only do what it knows how to do—and if its programming doesn't include knowledge about something, it won't write about it.
In fact, this is exactly what happened when I sent my writing task through an online service called Narrative Science (formerly Automated Insights). The website offers automated text generation services for businesses and media organizations looking for an alternative way of finessing data analysis reports or generating copy using machine learning tools—which sounds great!
These computer generated "robots" will use more data than humans could ever process to create their content, but they still won't be very creative.
That said, there are certainly ways AI can be used to improve the creative process. Most notably, AI can help writers find their voice more quickly by helping them discover what they want to say. Data analytics can also help content creators understand how consumers respond to different styles of writing so they know what works and what doesn't. And while computers aren't yet able to create truly original content on their own, they may soon be able to do so with some human assistance—and this could have a profound impact on how we approach storytelling in the future (and perhaps even define our culture).
It's possible that some professional writers will be out of work in the future thanks to these advancements in AI technology.
AI is not just a threat to journalists and writers, though. It's also a threat to other professionals who rely on the ability to write for their jobs.
In the near future, AI will be able to create content that is more personalized and targeted than anything we're used to today. Imagine if your search results included articles that were written specifically for YOU based on what you had read before or your interests? This is already possible with some software programs like Google Assistant and Siri, but it's only going to get better from here.
This type of technology could make it so everyone has access to high-quality writing in an unprecedented way—but at a cost: professional writers might lose work as companies realize they can produce more content at a faster rate using AI tools (and maybe even pay less). But this isn't necessarily bad news; there are plenty of other industries where human labor has been replaced by machines—like manufacturing—and those workers have been able to find new professions elsewhere (or sometimes even got paid more).
Artificial intelligence will be creating more and more of our content for us in the future
The first, and most obvious way AI will be used to create content for you is by writing simple articles about topics it has been programmed to know about. It may not be able to write a great piece of poetry or produce a novel that wins awards, but it could certainly provide one-off pieces that are suitable for some use cases (like your personal blog).
The second way AI will be used to create content for you is by curating content from other sources and placing it in an appropriate context (which might not even require any human intervention at all). In this case, AI isn't creating anything new at all - it's just finding existing work and putting it together in a more useful way. This is already happening with personal assistants like Siri and Google Assistant doing things like scheduling appointments or reading emails out loud while driving.
Conclusion
As we've seen, artificial intelligence is already here, and it's changing our world. It will continue to do so at an incredible pace in the near future. This is a high-stakes game, but there's no reason to be afraid: The more we learn about how AI works and what it can do, the better prepared we'll be to deal with any challenges that come up.
A zettabyte is a billion terabytes – or a stack of 2” tall 10TB drives 3400 miles high.