Identification of AI Generated Content
Introducing "Hildegard von AI"
A lot of people are worried about artificial intelligence, and rightly so. In the wrong hands, AI could be the most oppressive force ever seen on the planet.
That said, we can just bitch about the technology and pretend it’s not there, or find more positive ways to use it.
I’ve been using AI for my content marketing work, and it’s extremely helpful in crafting SEO articles on evergreen topics (meaning not time-sensitive). But you can’t just set the AI to “go” and expect a masterpiece to come out, at least not yet. I’ve now purchased a number of AI tools, some of which are better than others, and most as of yet cannot pump out a really good long-form article in one setting.
In using AI, I become an editor and the AI is my assistant in writing the basic information. I feed the AI the topic. Depending on the project, I may or may not give the AI an outline or ask the AI for one. The outline can then be used to create the article, which is often done in piecemeal.
The AI can also be useful in providing additional context in a human-written article, reducing the need to link out to another source or spend time writing up basic, but informative content.
For example, I could include a section in this piece on the “Pros and Cons of AI Generated Content”…and I’m now going to paste that into my AI assistant (using GPT4) and share what it comes up with:
Pros and Cons of AI Generated Content
AI-generated content offers a variety of benefits and drawbacks, which should be carefully considered before implementing it in any project.
Pros:
Efficiency: AI-generated content can be created quickly, allowing for rapid production and dissemination of information.
Cost-effectiveness: Using AI to generate content can reduce the need for human labor, potentially saving money on salaries and other expenses associated with content creation.
Consistency: AI algorithms can be programmed to follow specific guidelines, ensuring that the generated content remains consistent with branding or messaging requirements.
Data-driven insights: AI-generated content is often based on data analysis, which may provide valuable insights and improve the overall quality of the material.
Cons:
Lack of creativity: AI-generated content may come across as formulaic or repetitive since algorithms are not capable of true creativity and personal touch that humans possess.
Ethical concerns: The use of AI in content generation raises questions about authorship, copyright infringement, and even potential bias in how information is presented.
Misinformation risk: Inaccurate or misleading information can be spread easily when relying solely on AI-generated content without proper fact-checking or quality control from humans.
Overdependence on technology: Relying too heavily on AI for content generation could lead to a reduction in critical thinking skills among humans as they become less involved in the creative process.
In conclusion, while there are clear advantages to using AI-generated content in terms of speed and cost-effectiveness, it’s important to weigh these benefits against the potential drawbacks such as diminished creativity, ethical concerns, and risks associated with misinformation. A balanced approach that combines human expertise with machine efficiency might be the most prudent course of action moving forward.
Were I to create a longer standalone article, that text above might have been sandwiched by an introduction, an overview of current AI technologies, and advice on how best to utilize AI, etc.
When it comes to certain types of articles, the AI can actually do a pretty decent job, provided you instruct it properly. But you also need to review everything and make sure the information is correct.
When it comes to tedious information gathering, such as the kind that goes into the creation of herbal monographs, the AI can be a huge time saver. But the AI can also be used in more creative ways, and I’ve been exploring this with my series of AI-generated Sufi stories. Good stories are a little harder to generate, but with some creative prompting and a bit of editing, you can come up with some interesting takes, such as this fun little tale about a quest for a magic pineapple:
The main downside with the most widely used “large language models,” the GPTs of the AI world, is that they can be skewed and/or censored when it comes to political or inflammatory topics. For these types of issues, I do have the uncensored FreedomGPT installed locally, but it is limited and does not produce good longform content at this time.
But if you are talking about something relatively non-controversial, such as the herbal properties of peppermint, ChatGPT and its ilk are OK, provided you monitor the output to make sure it’s accurate. You may still need to manually add any additional “controversial” information, which is what I did in this herbal monograph for peppermint, because the AI assistant did not recognize the value of peppermint oil for covid treatment:
I also added my own information about the safety of peppermint essential oil in this monograph.
At any rate, to make it clear when AI is involved, I’ve created an online persona named “Hildegard von AI” (after famed Middle Ages mystic, herbalist, and composer Hildegard von Bingen).
When an article is primarily written by AI with little editing, Hildegard will get all the credit. When an article or story or herbal monograph has been created that needs a bit more of my input, which might range from developing an initial story concept to adding human-written sections or doing some heavy duty editing, I’ll include my byline as well.
AI content is not inherently evil. It’s really more of a case of GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out. When the AI is prompted correctly and edited appropriately, it can be a very useful tool in generating helpful content…and on my end, saves me time as well as my fingers. (Typing too much causes all sorts of problems, from carpal tunnel to shoulder issues.)
As such, AI can be a beneficial tool or used for bad. It’s not going anywhere, so I have decided to utilize it for now. In the future I will perhaps write a roundup of some of the AI tools I use along with some advice on how best to utilize them.