Is AI writing superior?
Is human writing superior?
Like many things in life, the answer depends on many factors.
What are you writing and who are you writing for?
How much expertise does the writing require?
And so on.
In this guide, we’ll try to answer the question ‘is AI writing superior to human writing’. We’ll dive into how AI creates content, how prevalent AI content is, the nuances of human writing, and even how to get the best of both worlds.
Let’s dive in.
Understanding AI writing
When we talk about AI writing, what folks are referring to is generative AI that’s usually based on large language models (LLMs).
That’s a mouthful so let’s break it down.
Organizations like OpenAI take a huge amount of text and media that was created by humans, analyze it, and then use it to train their models. Due to this, the models have a wide range of ‘knowledge’ about various topics.
They then take these models and create generative AI programs that draw on the models as a source or database.
What generative AI does when writing is really just using its large database and predicting what the best next word would be given the context.
For example, give me a glass of ___
There are only so many words that can fill in the blank and they’re further narrowed down by the context of the rest of the sentence and topic.
That is, in a nutshell, how generative AI works.
Of course, this is a gross oversimplification but it’s enough for you to get a basic grasp of how AI writing happens.
Over the last few years, AI writing has gotten popular.
The prevalence of AI writing
If you look only at the usage statistics, you may come to the conclusion that AI writing is superior.
Many people don’t realize how common AI-written content is. It’s used in academics – to the dismay of lecturers and professors everywhere. In some cases, usage may be more than 50%.
It’s used in content creation for blogs, email correspondence, internal knowledgebases, and so much more.
AI writing is everywhere and different schools of thought are developing related to how it should and shouldn’t be used.
Others aren’t keen on using AI content in certain fields – or at all. 52% of Americans are more concerned than excited about AI in daily life. They cite things like lack of originality, plagiarism, and the potential for misinformation.
Misinformation is a serious concern and there are multiple examples of it happening in the past.
There’s another camp that’s relatively unconcerned about AI and is moving on with their daily lives. They don’t support it and they’re not against it.
Whatever camp you fall into, AI writing is widely used trend lines show that the usage is only growing more and more prevalent with time.
Let’s look at the benefits and drawbacks of AI writing.
AI writing benefits
- Create large amounts of content quickly
- Come up with detailed outlines with little effort
- Save money on hiring or paying professional writers
- Get beyond writer’s block
- Can improve with time
AI writing drawbacks
- There are concerns about plagiarism
- The content often lacks originality
- The content may be devalued by algorithms
- There is the potential for grammar and spelling errors (though uncommon)
- There may be inherent biases in the AI model used
Should human writers be worried?
In a word – no.
There’s a time and a place for AI writing. There’s also a time and a place for human writing.
Not understanding the distinction is why people get worried.
If you want to read a sci-fi fiction story, would you like to have it written by AI or by a human?
The obvious answer is that you’d like to have it written by a human. That’s for various reasons but the main one is that AI writing is considered bland and monotonous.
Of course, human writing can be bland and monotonous. Try reading an academic research paper and you’ll understand.
But, generally speaking, when humans write, there’s more perplexity. This is one of the major ways to spot AI writing.
If you’re writing content that requires little to no expertise and personal experience, then yes, you should be worried.
If you’re writing content that requires creativity, personal experience, or deep expertise then you have nothing to worry about.
AI writing programs will have a hard time taking your spot.
The most important thing is to consider who you’re writing for. If your employer (or you) is creating a content farm then there’s no need for high-class writers.
If you’re considering journalism, creative writing, or working with a brand that has a clear personality and high-quality writing, everything should work out.
In a nutshell, human writing is here to stay but it’ll move towards higher-end content instead of low-quality easily created content.
Human writing pros
- Generally has more variety
- Increased creativity and originality
- Stronger storytelling ability
- Ability to draw new connections between different subjects
Human writing cons
- More prone to errors
- Takes longer to write
- Quality can vary widely between writers
- Much more expensive
Getting the best of both worlds – Humanize AI
There is a compromise that gives you the best of both worlds. You get the efficiency of writing with AI and the benefits of human writing.
There are multiple ways to go about this.
- Use a tool like Humanize AI
Humanize AI is a powerful tool that allows you to take AI content and transform it into human-like content. This improves the quality, enhances readability, and makes it possible to bypass AI detectors.
The methods used to make it work vary but, the most important aspect is that it’s designed specifically to transform AI content to human content without the issues. You know, taking too long to create, grammar and spelling errors.
This is a viable option if you have large amounts of content to create and a smaller budget. Use AI to create the initial draft then Humanize AI to improve it over time.
- Use AI writing for specific sections
This is a two-pronged approach. You use AI content creation tools for specific sections of your content like the outline or sections that deal with definitions.
They fall in line with what AI is good at and can speed up your workflow.
After that, you go in and write the other sections and edit the content written by AI to match your writing style.
You move a bit slower but have more control of the final output.
Conclusion
In our opinion, the answer to ‘Is AI writing superior’ is a resounding no. The important thing to consider is what is being written.
If it’s simple and the information is readily available online, then AI may be the better choice. Of course, you still want to humanize the content.
If it’s something that requires deep experience or expertise then humans may be the better choice. Of course, you still want to proofread the content.
