As the editor of a content mill that generates great articles every 4.2 seconds, like “Five Hacks for Your Roku” and “Seven Hacks for Your Roku,” I feel the need to take a stand against the rise of AI articles and the threat they pose to my team of human writers, who we treat like robots.
Sure, our articles maintain a rigid SEO template that creatively resembles the kitchen at a poorly run Quiznos, and granted, all our story ideas are gleaned from better-written magazine articles from seven months ago (that we’re totally not plagiarizing), but imagine if AI wrote those articles? So much would be lost.
We employ actual human writers, from teenagers who happen to have a computer and know how to mash 1,200 unreadable words in twenty minutes, to aging writers desperately grasping at the last branch in a failing industry and can’t make the 1,200 words that fast and will be let go. What would happen to them if we simply plugged terms into an AI article program? Self-worth, perhaps, yet at what cost? (None to us, obviously, since we pay in Slack chat emojis and no exposure.)
That post, “How to Change Your Oil with a Melon Baller,” along with the seventeen other “How to Change Your Oil with…” templates, wouldn’t be the same unless a human wrote it. And even if AI writing is indistinguishable from our endless stream of content covering every topic imaginable, where’s the heart? Where’s the passion?
Artificial intelligence can’t be exploited, condescended to, or frightened into working faster for fear of losing lousy paid work. Robots can’t get stress headaches or learn how to kiss my ass, even though I know they hate me. How can I feel power at the expense of the desperate if I’m working with an AI program? AI doesn’t breathe, love, or bleed (which are things my fellow editors and I are trying to eliminate from our freelancers as soon as possible).
Does an AI program get an erection when it realizes it’s making it harder for actual publications that treat writers respectfully to compete? I do. Do they feel pride knowing they’re feeding the public the lowest form of writing possible, writing that makes brochures at the DMV seem interesting? No, they don’t. They simply turn out content bereft of the feeling of hurting people, like that time I stepped on a lizard as a nine-year-old and smiled.
I was hired two weeks ago to replace the site editor hired six weeks ago, and in that time I’ve gained so much experience, seen so many writers come and go, and fired off thousands of articles in a ferocious attempt to get just one viral piece. You don’t hit that target with quality or originality, you hit it with a constant stream of words and pictures and hyperlinks that lead right back to our site in a horrifying mobius strip of content.
So, as an editor who regularly sends warning emails to writers about not making their 80,000 words a week, I implore you to resist the urge to use AI programs to create your content. People want to know that article “Seven Remakes We Wish Would Happen” was written by a real human being who told me to go fuck myself after downgrading his pay for not reaching the minimum click quota.
Real emotion went into that (the article, I mean, not necessarily the “fuck off and die” response), and I don’t want to live in a world that doesn’t take the time (6.8 seconds) to recognize the value of what’s real.