I remember, as a content writer, feeling a bit deflated when all this AI content creation stuff first came into play.
I remember thinking I was out of a job for a while.
But thankfully, that wasn’t the case. There are certain things artificial intelligence just can’t do.
AI is a force to be reckoned with, sure – capable of churning out complete articles in seconds with the right application, but it is lacking severely in one way.
It isn’t human. AI doesn’t have the privilege of human experience, human emotions, or even humor. It lacks nuance and understanding of the humans that read what it produces.
Any good writer knows that those things are their greatest weapon. Content being unique gives it a purpose in and of itself.
So, what’s the point of a “complete” article if it feels devoid of purpose, and character, and is in no way relatable or useful to the readers? What’s the point in searching for answers online when you only get a non-answer cobbled together from random bits and pieces by an AI?
So, that’s the head of it. Being human is your superpower.
AI can push boring, soulless, uniform content forever – but it can never replicate the quirks of being human that make an anecdote engaging, advice trustworthy, and emotion: tangible.
The key to beating AI is exploiting its weaknesses. So, you have to know them first.
If AI is one thing, it is consistent. Consistently… inconsistent. AI language models are quite happy to confidently answer a query incorrectly, and will go as far as to look for reason in its incorrectness in an attempt to fool itself and convince you of its credibility.
This is obviously, very dangerous when readers can’t parse real information from fabrications.
AI is inherently untrustworthy at the moment, which is evident by how much it contradicts itself – even within the same paragraph. AI cannot reflect and shift its current tangent to fit its past logic, and it has no consistent tone, branding, or messaging.
At any given moment, AI language models aren’t taking the entirety of the internet into account when answering a question. It just picks out bits and pieces: focusing on keywords that seem relevant to the question. This effectively means that it cannot:
research a topic in depth for you, considering all aspects and nuances of a subject
make its own connotations
understand context, or even the topic itself; it is merely regurgitating other information
To add on top of that, the information most AI language models (such as ChatGPT) are based on is old, dating back to 2021-2.
AI can’t really offer anything new to a piece of content. It can’t provide new, researched insight, and it can’t connect the dots. It’s amazing at reiteration of already expressed ideas, which sure, has its uses, but if you ask it to truly create something unique and interesting it just… can’t.
It refuses to pass any sort of moral or political judgment on anything, or speculate on real human issues. It isn’t capable of forming an opinion. It can only reaffirm existing ones.
It isn’t great at stringing together jokes or complex metaphors. It can’t recount personal experiences or anecdotes either.
If AI isn’t trustworthy, prove that you are. Create well-researched content with consistency, clarity, and credible expertise.
If AI can’t truly understand people’s problems, show that you do. Relate with your readers, show your audience that you care, and can spot the nuance in their situations.
If AI isn’t original, and isn’t capable of originality, be different. Be wildly unique, and embrace what makes you human. Share your stories, feelings, opinions – things that really matter and resonate with people: things that AI can never replicate.
Make sure your posts are unique, interesting, funny, and most importantly – authentically you.
Be a human writer.
Here are some things that real human writers excel at that AI just doesn’t:
Understand Google’s criteria:
Follow Google’s content guidelines, which emphasize E-E-A-T (Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness).
The key term there is Experience – share yours – AI doesn’t have any.
Use your content brain:
Consider the reader’s search intent and create optimized, authoritative content, linking to credible sources.
Leverage AI as a tool:
This seems like stooping low after preaching all that didactic anti-AI messaging, but hey, you’d have to be crazy not to consider AI as useful in some ways. Also, AI capitalizes on human intelligence, so why can’t we do the same?
You can use AI tools to generate ideas, outline sections, and structure content, then make it human with personal insights and creative flair. Create an AI writing process that works for you, if you want. Just don’t get carried away is all…
Understand the reader:
You had English classes at school: you know how this works. The thing is, AI doesn’t – it can’t grasp the concept of context or an intended audience.
Write persuasive content tailored directly to your readers, empathizing with their problems, beliefs, and needs.
Show them you can help:
Make content relevant to your readers’ unique disposition by addressing their pain points and providing solutions.
Be Curious:
Be thorough in researching topics, and consider different perspectives in your writing process. Follow the rabbit holes, tug on the strings: and produce something new and interesting!
What’s your perspective?:
What’s more human than having a unique stance on the world? Everyone is different, and everyone can learn from each other.
If readers are looking for content, they are likely looking for something new that they don’t already have. Whether your opinion differs from or affirms that of your audience, it is still a valuable new perspective.
Sell the article:
As we discussed earlier, AI isn’t always particularly talented at writing. Paired with its lack of understanding of how our minds work, it is really bad at persuasion.
Become a salesman; write compelling hooks that highlight the most interesting aspect of the article, using statistics, power words, and intriguing facts to guide the reader’s attention and stoke their emotions.
Use calls to action/the Problem-Agitate-Solution formula to further engage your reader in your article.
Make your content concise, honest, and easy to follow along. No fluff!
Utilise techniques and be creative:
Making sure your content is actually enjoyable to read (for HUMANS) is priority number one at the end of the day. You can appease google all you want, but if your readers aren’t intrigued and enraptured by your content they just simply won’t read it.
Write like a person: be funny, original, conversational, and anecdotal, admit to your shortcomings, and praise the things you care about. Have your own creative writing style: tell stories, and consciously use language to engage the reader. Be mindful of the connotations of your writing, and use words deliberately.
Use a brand voice:
Practice using a distinct, recognizable brand voice in your content, to differentiate yourself from dull, generic AI-generated drivel. Have character!
Show you put in genuine effort:
Showing genuine care and dedication distinguishes your work, and builds a sense of trust with your readers. Go the extra mile!
Avoid clickbait and be honest with your readers:
Focus on quality and truthfully providing value to your readers, and avoid hollow/purely algorithm-driven content.
Your greatest weapon against AI is the simple fact that you are not an AI. You, as a human, have the ability to stand out and be different.
AI is kind of stuck in that regard. Most natural language processing models are trained on a massive heap of written material, inconsistent in quality. As a result, it kind of evens out and just writes like the average writer.
Which, if you zoom out a little bit and take a gander at the endless pool of mediocre content on the internet, means the average isn’t actually very good at all.
Because the posts that show up on the SERPs are such a small percentage of the material AI absorbs, it ends up producing something with varying quality. As a result, most AI-generated content doesn’t exactly meet Google’s standards for high-quality rankable content, unless specifically prompted and tweaked to get it there.
Funnily enough, this isn’t really something that can be fixed easily. As the internet becomes increasingly bloated with AI-generated content, original, up-to-date human content becomes rarer.
As the next iteration of AI loops back around to train on all this new stuff on the internet, a lot of what it’s training on is now already watered-down AI content.
The result is increasingly unoriginal, recycled content that rapidly spirals south of quality.
When it comes down to it, if you create thoughtfully crafted, intentional, creative content, and play your cards right with the marketing: you will always beat out AI. Just be smart and be yourself.
Could return at a later date and discuss using other mediums and things like qualifiers etc. to distinguish yourself more from pure AI content, the power of creativity etc.
