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The biggest red flags of AI content and how to get around them (a human written article)

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Technology is great… until it isn’t. We increasingly rely on the shortcuts that tech provides until one day something doesn’t work and we’re left bereft, stressed out, and pretty stuck! There are endless real world examples; your washing machine breaks down, Wi-Fi disconnects, fitness watch update contains a bug. (That last one was from personal experience last week, it’s hit a nerve!) Increasingly though, we’re outsourcing not just our physical labour but our mental processes to tech. To AI tools specifically. Is this all fine, or do we need to exercise caution?

While AI generated content – text, pictures and video – are undoubtedly labour saving, there’s probably a limit to how reliant on them we should become. Increasing demand for cheap content, and the returns that it offers, makes using AI a prudent business decision. However, it remains important to be able to identify the differences, both for businesses and society. By drawing clear boundaries and retaining control, we can be constructive in our use of content technologies. 

The algorithm

At Leapfrog, we’re clearly not total luddites. It’s our trade to optimise the web presence of our clients to help their businesses to grow. We use many tools, including AI, to achieve that. But we’re also aware of how important the human user is. It’s not without irony that online, the humanity of content is assessed by algorithms, and prioritised as such amongst search page rankings and news feeds alike. Algorithms do not favour content composed by other algorithms. Dog eat dog, isn’t it!

We often talk of ‘The Algorithm’ as if it were a living, breathing, behemoth. And who are we to say it’s not – Terminator’s Skynet started off as something similar after all. It’s all really complicated, yes. And no one really knows how to please the algorithms as they’re constantly changing. Being a human writing for humans should be enough. But it’s not. And it’s expensive. This is why so many organisations start with AI content and then humanise it.

Cultural referencing

Algorithms take us to a really important difference between human and AI generated content. Cultural referencing. I’ve already referenced the Luddites and Skynet. If these are hitting a gap in anyone’s knowledge, here’s a quick recap: 

The Luddites were a 19th Century protest group predominantly made up of weavers who would smash up factory machines that were introduced during the Industrial Revolution. So it followed that the word luddite slipped into etymology to mean anyone who doesn’t embrace technological advancement. 

On the other end of the spectrum, Skynet is the advanced AI system that is basically the baddie in the Terminator film franchise. Its aim is to destroy humanity and it wages war against a resistance of humans before it’s eventually defeated by John Connor and his pals in 2029. (OK it’s a lot more complicated than that, please don’t write in Terminator nerds!) I guess it’s what the Luddites would have feared the end point to be if they could have conceived of the enormity of change that the next 200 years would hold. 

Most of us have shared cultural references that, when recognised, give us an immediate connection and engagement to the content. It’s why image based memes work so well and parodies are so shareable. Importantly, it’s something that AI just doesn’t get right despite its chasms of reference material. So if you want to humanise your content – get some genuine cultural referencing in there. But research your audience first to hit your mark.

Details and factchecking

Which brings us to details. The devil’s always in the detail and this can be where AI falls down to catastrophic effect. If you do use these tools, check the facts and stats that your generator has come up with. They can be as telling as a third hand in an AI generated photograph. A huge red flag for AI created content is the avoidance of all opinion and data. At the other end of the spectrum, you might find a stat that’s completely out of context floating around. 

You’ll get the best results from AI tools if you’ve done a bit of research in advance and you feed your generator with correct and relevant facts. By putting in this ground work, you’ll actually have achieved a large tick in the humanisation of that content. As well as preventing the content from feeling generic and vague, it’ll also help to keep it on track in terms of both subject and tone.   

Language and tone

Obviously when we generate a text or image through AI, we rescind a certain amount of control. This is a trade off. What we gain is speed and volume. What we lose is control of personal tone and nuance. While there is a certain amount of training and ‘feeding’ that you can provide an AI tool, there’s likely to be some clangers that slip through the net. 

Clear signs of AI are that the tone tends to be overly formal, and there’s an overuse of melodramatic and misplaced phrases like ‘in the bustling and heady universe of library archiving systems…’ Colloquialisms are skewed or just completely lacking, and there’s a lot of repetition. 

So, to use the tools successfully you can build up a tone of voice by giving your AI content generator examples of pieces that you’ve written yourself. You can identify specific words and phrases that you don’t want it to use. This is all in the preparation – it’s the same old story: you get out what you put in. Most importantly, you must proofread with your human eyes! Ultimately, this is the only way to spot those jarring AI tells. 

Demand for content

Why are we even at the point where we’re assessing the value of human written content? Well, it’s because of the seemingly endless demand for it. The more that’s produced, the more that needs to be produced just to keep your website, or social media page, relevant. Perhaps it’ll reach critical mass, perhaps not. In the meantime, we should be mindful of the financial cost of it all. And this is the ultimate reason that most organisations employ AI tools. They’re cheaper than good quality humans. 

And when we’re so used to spellcheckers and calculator apps, does it even matter? The preppers out there will likely say yes – come the collapse of civilisation the loss of basic skills will be catastrophic. But then if you’re running away from a rabid zombie / sentient robot / mutant alien (depending on your apocalyptic vision) then you’ll likely have more immediate things to worry about. 

So the pragmatic answer is that we evolve our skills to harness AI content generation. It’s important to keep a human audience at the forefront of the text and image content that we produce. If we, as content creators, put sufficient thought and intent into our use of these tools, they can be a genuine aid. And always, ALWAYS, proofread.

Postscript:

After I wrote this using my human brain, out of interest I generated an AI blog with the same title. These are its final thoughts:

“The rise of AI-powered content creation has undoubtedly transformed how businesses communicate, but its limitations highlight the enduring importance of human creativity. While AI is a powerful tool, it works best as a complement to, not a replacement for, human writers.
For now, the best results are achieved through partnership—a collaboration that combines the efficiency of AI with the artistry of human creativity. And with the right balance, you can create content that is both impactful and scalable.”

But then, that’s exactly how Skynet would lure us in to gain our trust, isn’t it…

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