Pros and Cons of AI-Generated Content

Artificial intelligence is rapidly growing in the tech sector and helping with various tasks, such as creating images and generating content. However, it cannot do everything.

AI-generated content is becoming popular, but many people wonder how to use it and whether it really sounds authentic.

AI is rapidly growing in the tech sector, including use cases in supply chains, the food industry, chatbots, and content and image generation. AI-generated images made headlines when critics claimed that AI art systems were stealing people’s intellectual property in large models, such as OpenAI’s Dall-E.

OpenAI introduced a similar AI program for content known as ChatGPT. This bot has a more general purpose and provides an open prompt for users to ask questions, give commands, or request observations. The bot responds to both broad and specific questions.

The system generated responses that teachers and other educators said were detailed enough to earn a good grade. However, after closer review, some sources, such as Stack Overflow for programmers and developers, said the information was inaccurate and temporarily banned responses that used this system.

Since there are no limits to the answers ChatGPT can provide, it even allowed a user to search how to make explosives and shoplift.

Companies are considering AI tools to help with content creation and writing. The same question arises about whether AI will replace content writers. While AI-generated content may not be suitable for all writing, there are some excellent ways to use these tools.

What is AI-generated content?

AI-generated content includes copy such as blogs, marketing materials, articles, and product descriptions written by a machine. The AI content creator generates the content after a person enters information such as keywords, phrases, and topics.

AI-generated content can help speed up the writing process, and businesses are beginning to notice. Marketers might consider using AI-generated content to automate the content marketing process, which can sometimes be slow and costly.

How does AI-generated content work?

To produce content, users enter the required text format along with a topic and keywords. The AI tool then searches the internet and assembles text that fits the requested format. Some tools also rewrite a company’s existing content to add information based on web searches and editing tools. These tools can take existing content and adapt it to other communication formats, such as turning a blog article into a social media post or an email draft.

There are free content generators, but others charge for more detailed content.

What are the advantages of AI-generated content?

AI-generated content can be valuable in several ways. Below are some of the advantages:

1. Efficiency and scalability

AI can create content much faster than people, which is probably the biggest benefit. An AI tool can produce an article in minutes. A human writer would take much longer to do all the research and writing.

Multiply the quick turnaround by the number of articles, and an AI tool can produce a significant amount of content.

AI also helps with language localization for various geographic areas and can create social media content, customizing it for different sites.

2. Cost-effectiveness

Hiring quality content writers usually costs a few hundred dollars per project, often depending on the length of the article, the number of pieces, and the technical knowledge required. And this could be a good investment if it results in high-quality, well-researched content.

Some AI writing tools are free, while others charge a monthly subscription fee. Prices are usually around $100 for tens of thousands of words.

Given these considerations, AI-generated content may be better suited for simpler content than for articles that require expertise and authority.

3. Improved SEO

AI content generators scan thousands of online documents to absorb information. By analyzing all these documents, generators choose keywords to improve search engine optimization (SEO).

The AI tool can suggest keywords for the content writer. By using these keyword suggestions throughout an article, the content ranks higher in search engines if it also follows the rest of the guidelines of being authoritative and written by a person.

4. Helps with writer’s block

Writer’s block is a common obstacle for many people. Sometimes, writers may struggle to create authoritative content on a topic they know little about.

To help overcome this, AI tools can create detailed outlines and key points to guide the writer on what to include in the article. These suggestions can help users beat writer’s block and generate the ideas needed to start writing.

What are the disadvantages of AI-generated content?

There are several considerations when it comes to using AI-generated content. Some content is better written by a human writer. Below are some drawbacks of AI-generated content:

1. Quality concerns and possible plagiarism

AI relies on data and algorithms for content. AI tools can cover clear, defined areas of a topic, but gray areas are more subjective, and the desired tone may be lost.

Search engines may also flag content because it is similar to already published materials since AI pulls from the same sources. AI tools assemble content from multiple sites and rephrase it. Without proper flow, this process goes against Google’s guidelines on “stitching and combining content.” Content must be authoritative and informative, which can be hard to achieve when pulling information from multiple sites without proper human review.

2. Algorithms devalue content

Google released its Helpful Content update in August 2022 to penalize content created solely to rank higher in search engine results.

In March 2024, Google rolled out another update to improve some of its content ranking systems. The update is designed to help users decide if web pages are unhelpful, provide a poor user experience, or seem to prioritize keywords over being informative to the reader.

3. Lack of creativity and personalization

Creative content makes articles more engaging. People tend to share articles they feel connected to, but AI lacks emotional intelligence to create a story. Its approach is usually focused on adding facts to an outline.

AI relies on existing web content and data to develop text. The technology does not understand user intent in queries and still lacks the common sense of human behavior.

4. Human editing is still required

People still need to review AI-generated content. While AI may save time, humans must still check articles for quality.

AI tools combine information from multiple websites into one piece. There may be errors to correct, such as product descriptions with textures and colors. This usually happens because AI tools don’t understand the meanings of adjectives.

5. Cannot generate new ideas

AI tools use existing data for content, meaning they cannot propose fresh ideas. This makes it difficult to create new content that covers the latest and trending topics.

Ways to use AI-generated content

AI-generated content is best used as a writing assistant rather than relying strictly on the technology. Below are some ways to use AI tools to help with content:

• Research: For writers who struggle to organize a topic or generate ideas, AI-generated content can help them get started. Some tools suggest what to include in broader topics to help narrow down the research process.
• Polish current material: To ensure an article is optimized, writers can run it through AI tools for a score. The tool can also highlight keywords and phrases that should be used. AI tools can also help check grammar and correct spelling mistakes.
• Write short content: AI tools can produce a lot of content in a short time, making them great for repetitive tasks. While some communications require more emotion, some short descriptions do not. Product descriptions, meta tags, ad copy, and social media posts are examples of short texts suited for content generators.
• Translate languages: To make written material appealing to all audiences, AI generators can help translate content into different languages.
• Create templates: AI tools can help create emails or other templates. Some AI tools offer different types of ready-made templates for users to fill in with personalized information.

This is where our AI text humanizer is so useful. It uses advanced AI techniques to make your AI-generated content appear human-written.

How to detect AI-generated content

There is a bigger concern with AI-generated content: students using these tools to cheat. Several teachers stated that AI-generated content in ChatGPT created convincing essays.

To help distinguish between human and AI text, OpenAI released a new AI text classifier on January 31, 2023. However, in July 2023, the company withdrew the classifier due to its low accuracy. There are other online tools that help detect AI-generated content by rating the likelihood that it was written by a person instead of AI.

OpenAI is also working on creating a watermark for longer AI-generated texts as an immediate identifier.

In addition to running text through an online AI content detector, there are other signs that content is AI-generated, such as:

• Lack of typos. Human writing often has typos and includes colloquial terms. AI-generated content rarely has mistakes like grammar errors or misspellings.
• Overuse of “the.” AI-generated content relies on predictive language when deciding the next word, so it commonly uses words like “the,” “is,” or “it” instead of less common terms.
• No cited sources. AI-generated text often presents facts but does not cite sources.
• Shorter sentences. Sentence length in AI-generated content is often shorter because it tries to imitate human writing but often sounds more choppy.
• Repetition of words or phrases. If certain words or phrases are used excessively, this could indicate AI-generated content, as it tries to fill space with relevant keywords.
• Lack of analysis. AI can gather data, but it cannot analyze it. If an article seems full of facts without any reflection, it could be AI-generated.