Will AI Take Over Writing Jobs?

Artificial intelligence (AI) incites excitement in some people and fear in others. The fear, for many, doesn’t come from the idea that robots are going to take over the world.

They have a much more immediate fear that AI will take over their jobs. AI writing uses natural language generation and deep learning to generate text from data.

By 2030, it’s predicted there will be a 16% reduction in America’s workforce as a result of AI technology. Writing is one profession some people believe could be done by AI, rather than by humans.

Could AI replace content writers? It’s a fear I often hear from aspiring remote writers and less so from those actually in the field and rarely from the most experienced, expert writers.

I’ve personally had several clients ask me to research various AI services for them to see if the services might be useful for me and I’ve tried some of the services as well.

The reasoning below explains why I believe my job is safe, but the same can’t necessarily be said for all types of writers at all levels of expertise.

Let’s take a look at what AI can and can’t currently do.

AI Writers CAN'T Create Truly Original Content

Artificial intelligence tools scrape information from elsewhere on the internet. It can combine that information in ways it hasn’t been organized elsewhere, but it doesn’t create new material.

AI writing services aren’t contacting industry experts for new quotes or sharing personal experiences like human writers. They won’t make connections between various data points.

Of course, not every piece of content requires quotes, personal experiences, or data connections. However, for the ones that do, an AI writer won’t help with that.

AI CAN’T Understand Itself

Let me provide you with an example to explain this one. When trying out the AI writer Jasper (formerly known as Jarvis) for a client, the tool suggested I say something along the lines of, “This gives you an excuse to touch the children, which is fun for everyone!”

A human brain reading that sentence realizes you probably shouldn’t encourage readers to find excuses to touch children. However, AI simply doesn’t know what it’s saying. The sentence is fine grammatically and it “makes sense,” but it’s socially tone deaf.

AI Writers CAN'T Recreate Emotional Intelligence

Daniel Goleman has reported on behavioral sciences for 12 years for the New York Times and was nominated twice for the Pulitzer Prize.

In his book Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, he states, “The emotional messages people send and respond to moment to moment while interacting are, at this point, far beyond the ability of AI programs to mimic.”

AI writing tools simply can’t write anything that requires emotional skill like human writers do. It may be able to compose a catchy tweet, but it can’t respond to customer complaints on Twitter that would require empathy and other human emotions.

Human intelligence is nuanced in a way robot writers can't imitate yet.

AI CAN'T Fact-check its Information

As I hope you already know, not everything on the internet is true. While marketers will frame it as a positive how many websites an AI writing tool can scan through, they are leaving out that many of those websites state inaccurate information that human writers would catch.

AI tools will pull any information that seems useful, even if it’s wrong. Sometimes, it’s simply out-of-date information. Other times, it will make up a convincing quote that was never said. At worst, it’s purposely published misinformation meant to spread an agenda.

One AI tool, when writing an article about weight loss, suggested a great way to lose weight is to hydrate…with soda. While hydration is important, soda certainly won’t help you lose weight.

AI Writers CAN Help Combat Writers' Block

Struggling with what to say next with fiction writing? Can’t think of more topics related to your niche? Human writers sometimes feel stuck. Artificial intelligence is useful for idea generation.

Even if the way it completes a paragraph isn’t exactly what you want to say, it can provide you with a direction to take so you don’t keep staring at a blank screen. AI can also help you think of topic ideas you hadn’t considered writing about, which can be particularly helpful for very niche businesses.

AI Writers CAN Help With SEO (For Now)

Artificial intelligence writing tools can stuff your content with as many keywords as you want. If your goal is to have your blog or website homepage filled with as many keywords as possible, AI can easily do that for you.

For now, “keyword stuffing” is still a popular SEO method. People refer to this as “fluff” content.

However, it’s expected that by 2029, search engines (we all know this means Google) will be able to comprehend the meaning of a search inquiry and not just digest keywords. At that point, either AI will have to have evolved or you’ll need human content writers.

Note that this is specifically about AI software that writes for you. There are other AI tools that don’t write for you, but generate keyword phrases for a writer to incorporate naturally.

These AI tools can do an excellent job finding keywords you didn’t know you should include! Content creation isn't just about creating quality work. You need to ensure that work is seen, as well.

AI Writers CAN Write Short, Snappy Content

Some AI services can create attention-grabbing ads for Facebook and Google.

If you need help coming up with dazzling advertisements that use all the top buzzwords, AI could be the assistance you need.

I’d bet the services could also do well writing captions, Twitter posts, and website copy for specific industries. It can do pretty well mimicking the language of homepages and advertisements.

AI Writers CAN "Spin" Articles

Ever try to look up a news topic and just find the same text, written slightly differently, over and over again? Sometimes, it isn't content writers who write news articles.

It's robot writers "spinning" the content. It's basically just rearranging words and using other words that mean the same thing. For example, the robot might find a news article stating, "The attack happened in the afternoon" and it would generate text saying, "The attack occurred midday."

While artificial intelligence can do this, I wish it wouldn't as it doesn't add any additional value to the information available online.

Should I Use an Artificial Intelligence Writing Service?

If you write your own content and need some help eliminating writers’ block, filling your writing with keywords, or creating short, dynamic advertisement language, artificial intelligence services could be a beneficial tool for you.

However, if you need long-form content that is original, socially aware, and factually accurate, you’re better off hiring a professional human writer. It may seem like you could save money by using AI writing tools and then hiring someone to fact-check and edit the work.

In my experience, and from what I’ve heard from other writers, editing a very poorly written piece is often more work than just writing the piece from scratch.

Will AI Take Replace Writers?

For the easiest, fluffiest of content, AI might soon replace human content writers. Natural language processing is advancing quickly.

Think of it like grocery store checkouts. Artificial intelligence writing tools are self-checkouts and editors are the person who monitors all the self-checkouts for everything that goes wrong and needs assistance.

In my opinion, we’re a long way away from high-quality human writers getting replaced.

There is value in writers including their personal experiences, gathering truly original quotes, having emotional intelligence, providing design directions for relevant graphics, and more.

If you’ve spent years crafting your writing and business skills, you don’t need to start looking for different employment. Your writing job is likely safe.

Just getting started as a remote writer? Learn how to go from Zero to Remote Writer.