With each passing day, artificial intelligence (AI) is improving and becoming imperative in several sectors. Even website content, blogs, and online magazine articles now fall in the domain of AI. Don’t believe us? Take a look at the Forbes’ Earnings Report. Forbes uses Quill, the writing software that takes the facts, numbers and other information to mold them into a human-friendly language. Quality and readability are not issues for the latest writing software programs. According to Gartner, by the end of 2018, most businesses will use AI to churn out fresh content.
What’s the relationship between AI and content creation?
As of now, the content bots can take number and stats and churn out perfectly readable content. That brings us to a crucial juncture of user and usability – is readability enough? What do the human readers expect from a piece of material apart from readability? While content writing AIs is intelligent and (mostly) grammatically correct, they lack a few essential human qualities. Even today, it is easy to tell the difference between a human writer’s work and a bot’s work. That brings us to the topic of SEO. Search engine optimization now relies on user experience (UX), content quality and keyword research. It turns out that bots are good at keeping the keyword and essential phrase requirement on priority while cooking content. So, the search engines should be pleased, right?
What’s Google’s take on Bot-generated content?
Right now, millions of writers across the world are worried about their jobs as AI writers take over. So, when we said that the bots could take care of keywords and themes, your heart must have somersaulted. Thankfully, Google still holds human writing in high regards. As the content writing tools are becoming “smarter” than before, Google’s search engine algorithms are also improving. We have seen a drastic shift in rank signals after Hummingbird came into being. More changes became apparent after RankBrain went online. Both these updates turned the tables for website content in the forms of articles, blogs, eBooks, PDFs, white papers, videos, images, and infographics. Very recently, a new Facebook’s algorithm, Rosetta has made it possible to detect the text from memes and videos. So, unless the website owner and blogger is careful about the quality of their content, they can face flak from Google and social media platforms. Check out more on optimization of website content on Digital Rocket Fuel.
Why will bots never have your job?
Here are a few ways in which AI can never replace the need for human writers –
- Bots and tools do not have human emotions, judgment, and contextual reasoning
Providing a list of offensive words to your bot is an easy way to ensure that they never make their way into your content. However, there is no way the bot can use their “judgment” to write something inoffensive and neutral. Sometimes, it becomes necessary to write on topics that might be controversial but trending. While human users can deal with the controversial issues with sensitivity owing to empathy, and their assessment of right-and-wrong, it is impossible for AIs to do so.
That is the reason most bot-produced articles are flat and impersonal. AI can be intelligent, but they lack human emotions altogether. They do not have “declarative memory,” or empathy. You may have already sampled a bit of Artificial Intelligence in your writing life. Grammarly is one such software that should “help” writers. Well, does it really?
In most cases, it interrupts, suggests erroneous “corrections” and bizarre replacements for perfectly sensible words. How often have you hit “Ignore” during these times? If you have used Grammarly often, you must have done this quite a few times.
- Robot-written content is costly
We have always known that SEO copywriting is expensive, what we did not realize is that bot-written material is costlier than that. Today, AI might be evolving, but there are only a few slick enough to make to the front pages of The Washington Post and Forbes Magazine. Apart from the shortage of “intelligent” AI writers, the cost is another factor that limits the use of robot-generated content in mainstream media.
With AI writers, you get what you pay for. The cheaper ones do not live up to the expectation of the expert writers and bloggers. The expensive ones are beyond the reach of most bloggers today. The more pocket-friendly your bot is, the more your article sounds like a robot! That is something you do not want to publish. Google does not like content with low readability.
- Most bot-writers are not relatable
Let’s be real, when Sheldon Cooper speaks, we often believe he is a cyborg, and he is only reciting what real human scriptwriters have written for him. So, when a bot writes the content, it requires a great deal of polishing and editing to ensure that it sounds nothing like a robot. As human beings, we are partial towards good puns, anecdotes, and subtle humor. Sadly, AIs have not yet developed to the level where they can understand these.
Human writers have the creativity that they can supplement with humor, quips, and metaphors. Writing has always been about engaging people. So, the more human and relatable the accounts are, the more chances you have to keep your visitors on the page. You must be wondering how that helps your SEO. Well, when people stay long on a page, it is a good sign. It is the dwell time, and it reduces the bounce rate. It sends a positive ranking signal to Google. A great piece of content can make quite an impact on how Google’s bots “see” your website.
Content is the critical part of any website. With the rise of Ai in almost every field, it was only a matter of time before content creation tested their usefulness as well. However, we have given you some solid reasons not to fear the rise of the bots. They might be able to help with keyword research, content suggestion and other aspects of SEO, but they are still far away from taking charge of creating new pieces. All in all, bots will not replace human writers under any circumstance, any time soon.
