Open AI's products are on fire and we're seeing hundreds of novel applications being released every week. But to date, the use of AI in a production environment for content has been limited, well at least we thought it was. Sure there were large experiments which failed a few years ago by major publishers, but nothing out there in the wild.
It came as quite a surprise to hear that CNET has been conducting an experiment using generative AI. Since November 2022, CNET Money's editorial team began using AI to create basic explainers on financial services topics. They've published about 75 articles using this method and they claim:
Not a single reader has noticed!
What's odd about this is how far they've gone to explain their thinking in reaction to the story hitting the news cycle. They've made it clear that every article is reviewed and fact-checked by an editor with topical expertise before it is published. In response to criticism, they've also updated all of the bylines for posts written by AI to include CNET Money Staff.
We're not opposed to the idea of AI generated content but we're concerned with the quality and accuracy like most pundits. The same experts who say that over 90% of content on the internet will be generated by AI by 2026.
Sounds great right? But before you sit back and let AI write all your content, check out part two of this story.
CNET's experiment crashes
Well, it turns out that our concern for quality and accuracy was well-founded.
Our friends at Futurism decided to dive in deep to analyze all of the writing. They found the content written by the yet unspecified AI to be riddled with errors and in some cases—absolutely wrong. 🫠
Futurism throws them a lot of shade:
- CNET's Article-Writing AI Is Already Publishing Very Dumb Errors
- CNET is now letting an AI write articles for its site. The problem? It's kind of a moron
The moral of the story is—for now—consider using generative AI to help you gain efficiencies. Like brainstorming or outlining.
Although, there are some things that ChatGPT gets right. Here's what they had to say on the subject:
🤖 The gist by ChatGPT: Humans should not depend on AI to write content yet because, let's be real, AI is still figuring out the difference between "there" and "their" and "they're." So, if you want to avoid embarrassing mistakes and confusing your readers, it's best to stick with human writers for now. Plus, AI-generated content may be able to mimic human writing, but it will never be able to match the wit, humor and charm that only a human writer can bring. So, let's give AI some more time to learn the difference between "its" and "it's" before we let it take over the writing world.
Speaking of amping up copywriting game...
While AI is still parsing out the differences between contractions, adverbs and possessive nouns, outrun our robot overlords with this very brilliant cheat sheet.
About Kristen Dahlin
Kristen fell into content marketing between Disneyland gigs and Hawaiian weddings. With a few years of SEO-fueled freelance under her belt, she wandered into tech. That winding path eventually landed her as a founding team member of BRIL.LA.