Are You Truly a Better Skier if You Climb the Mountain?
Today, I want to address a topic that seems to be making rounds in the online business world, and here within WA.
To leap off of a discussion I just had in a live chat. I want to talk about something fundamental... the essence of creativity and human effort.
With the looming presence in our lives with AI (artificial intelligence) arriving, a lot of people are wondering if human language content is going to win the "content race", in particular in the world of SEO.
Let's have a look here.
Human-generated Content vs. AI-generated Content. Who Wins?
Just like there's always that heated argument about whether you're a better skier if you climb the mountain, there's also an ongoing debate about whether human-generated content is always superior to AI-generated content.
Is it, though?
I get it... it's easy to be skeptical about AI and automation. After all, we are HUMANS, we want to believe we are better at human activities than robots or technology, but then the tech to replace us arrives and we have to come to the realization that perhaps that the very thing we have been doing since we started learning to write, might be something that can be completely replaced.
Well, not completely replaced. We are creative, passionate, and quite often unpredictable. We tend to believe that nothing beats human touch, and this belief extends to content creation as well, and this creativity, passion and unpredictability has to come from somewhere.
But let's put it into perspective for a moment.
Just because something is "human-generated", doesn't mean it's always superior. There are plenty of humans out there producing less than stellar content. You know what I'm talking about... content riddled with grammar errors, spelling mistakes that'd make your old English teacher cringe, and sentence structures that make it next to impossible to digest as a reader.
So that begs the question...
Does Human Effort Always Equate to Superior Results?
To further illustrate this point, let's take a quick detour from the digital landscape and step into the great outdoors.
A human tilling a field, armed with nothing but their trusty old hoe, might feel a sense of satisfaction with every bead of sweat that trickles down their brow... BUT (and a big but), does that make their work superior to a modern farming machine that can till acres upon acres in a fraction of the time?
This is the reason the industry revolution happened in the first place. Machines were better, more efficient, more consistent and accurate, and more productive at accomplishing the same thing.
There was a fret of these machines stealing all the jobs, but instead what it allowed is the workers to become more efficient, and solve much bigger problems....and to grow produce, wheat, and fruit for millions more people.
The exact same logic applies to skiing.
A human hiking up a ski mountain, breaking a sweat and feeling the burn, may feel more accomplished than the person who rides up the chairlift, but are they necessarily a BETTER skier?
Other than being in better shape and perhaps earning a few bragging rights, the answer is, probably not.
So why should content creation be any different?
Is Manual Typing the Magic Ingredient to High-Quality Content?
Let's bring it back to our world now...
The world of affiliate marketing, SEO, and building successful online businesses. Just because you're physically typing on a keyboard and ultimately taking a lot more time to create your content, doesn't mean that your content is automatically going to be better than something created in an automated fashion.
It's not the medium that matters, it's the message.
The end goal is to provide value. To give your readers useful, interesting, and engaging content. To captivate them. To help them. So whether that content is created by human hands or through artificial intelligence (or a hybrid of both), if it delivers on that promise, then it is the winning formula.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that AI is going to replace human writers any time soon... or at all. We're not close to being there yet (but we are working quietly behind the scenes on some pretty relevant tech related to this), but to dismiss it entirely simply because it's not human-generated?
That is equivalent to refusing to use a chairlift and insisting on climbing the mountain every time you get to the bottom of the hill, even though the chairlift is available. You might feel a sense of accomplishment, but you're not necessarily a better skier, just a more tired one!
Let's focus on what matters here, irrespective of how it is accomplished. Creating high-quality content that resonates with our audience, no matter how it's generated.
Keep that in mind, and you'll be hitting the "pow" of the slopes of success in no time, whether you took the chairlift or climbed the mountain!
Till next time, keep your content strong and your conversions stronger!
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Recent Comments
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Your chairlift vs mountain climber comparison really hits the mark. I mean, we're out here to ski. Not necessarily to trek up the hill, making friends with the local wildlife. It's interesting that no one has a problem when we use Grammarly, even though it can give our text a total makeover based on our initial writing.
I have friends and family who use Siri on the iPhone and verbally ask her everything but “don’t like”
AI. I pointed out that already use AI! Funny! I couldn’t live without grammarly, because the suggestions remind me of what I learned about writing from the past. I am better with grammarly than with out the program!
Spot on!
Exactly, we are out here to ski and if we can avoid having to trek up the hill, then I am all for it. In particular if it leads to us being a better quality skier as a result of getting more runs in.
This is what AI is affording us all. :)
Good morning Kyle,
As you know, I haven't been a great fan of AI, but that is changing! That's due to the fact of all the various training on Wealthy Affiliate, regarding using AI. I'm still dubious of how governments, the military, scientists, the UN and The Who etc will use AI!
I hear where you are coming from, Kyle. I particularly like your example of using the trusty hoe. It's funny that I'm sceptical of AI and yet I will gladly find a machine that will make the job a lot easier than human hands! Having been involved with agriculture, horticulture and forestry all my working life, I am one that's always looking for a machine to make the job easier.
Even today, I see so many people struggling in the garden unnecessarily, just because they are using the wrong equipment. I guess this comes down to a lack of knowledge.
People have sometimes said to me; you're a gardener. My answer to them is I am not really I'm more of a mechanised gardener, as I like finding a machine to do the job! I guess this comes down to the same thing with AI!
Have a great weekend.
Roy
Yeah, I can appreciate apprehension with new tech. This is a shift in the way we think, and we have to come to terms that we are not as good at things we have been doing for the last 20, 30, 40 years personally.
I write all day, every day (and have done so for the last 21 years). It is a better, more articulate, and can be far more funny than me in my writing. That is a tough pill to swallow.
But the thing is, I can become better than ever at these things that have conventionally spent a lot of time working on. I don't have to make mistakes, I don't have to get fatigue, and I can quickly and efficiently tie in all my opinions, creative ideas, and idioms into the content.
The same as we garden with tools, and often times gas tools, is the same way we are going to leverage AI to become better and more efficient at tasks that we already do. :)
Thank you for your reply Kyle, it's appreciated.
In a way, I probably don't like change, I kind of like things as they are, but I do appreciate it's important to adapt. I was one of the later people in life to have a computer, as I didn't feel there was a need. If someone had told me that I was going to have an online business, I would have laughed! It's amazing how we can change and adapt, even though sometimes we think we can't!
I have to admit, Kyle, that I'm absolutely amazed and impressed at how much work you manage to achieve. You must have huge amounts of emails and people to deal with every day. I regularly see you in live chat and you regularly respond to my comments. I appreciate that this takes a terrific amount of hard work and a solid commitment! It's always good to listen to people who are successful and to people who are making it happen! I haven't forgotten about you saying how much AI had speeded up your tasks!
It's funny that I understand technology more when we refer to a mechanical garden tool rather than electronic technology! However, it comes down to the same thing.
Thank you for the encouragement and clarification.
Roy
I'm still a little skeptical. Take something you're really interested in. Would you read a website if you need it that was completely made by AI?
It's great that machine learning is able to aggregate lots of data about a lot of different topics. I'm not so sure it's going to be great at providing insights that are helpful to everyone.
Personally, I think the search result quality has steadily declined over the years from actually useful and helpful to regurgitated uninspired results.
How many product reviews do you see that actually give you insightful information beyond what's listed on the product page of Amazon?
Not many. I guess that means insightful information doesn't matter.
One interesting point I read about AI recently was that currently you have an internet filled with content mostly written by humans that the AI learns from.
What happens when the internet is mostly filled with content written by AI and that same content is used by the AI to learn?
Would you read a website, it you knew it was someone that wasn't a 30 year expert in that trade?
Would you read a website, if you knew that person struggled with English in high school?
The reality is, we read websites all the time. What we read, is the content. If the content is great, helpful, and captivating, then it is good. We are not replacing ourselves, we are speeding up the process through our own creative decision making, and able to create "better" content as the result of not having to do a lot of the manual legwork that existing with the conventional process.
That is what has changed. It is absolutely not replacing us, but we are able to get way more runs in on the mountain, and become a much better skier, much faster.
If you could become smarter, would you?
If you could write faster, would you?
If you could avoid errors in your writing, would you?
This is what AI affords. You can still create terrible content with it, or you can create fantastic content with it. That is something that is still up to YOU, as the publisher! :)
Wow, what a powerful article. You certainly have history to back you up. It is pretty common for objections to flow in when "replacing " the personal or human touch with advanced technology but imagine where we would be without it. I like using AI as the foundation and then adding the personal touch. With the heavy work being done, I can concentrate on skiing back down.
Yeah, there are going to be plenty of objections any time there is new technology. The thing is, you can decide for yourself whether or not you want to use it...but those that are going to embrace it, are going to be able to speed up processes drastically. Those that refrain, may be left behind.
At the end of the day, personal touch doesn't evacuate content because someone is using AI. In fact, the mundane and heavy lifting can be done for you, and you can then focus on more personalization...and more content creation.
Let's focus on the skiing part, not the climbing part. The skiing part is what leads to clout and expertise.
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Hi Kyle≤
I love your analogies. Any tool that enables me to be more efficient as well as provide superior service is fine with me. If I can use AI to help me achieve my content creation faster, and better I have no issue with that.
As long as I read what the AI output is and edit it for errors and to make it my own. This means that even using AI we still need to do our homework.
Cheers!
Edwin
Haha, I am always full of analogies! I find it easy to explain complex topics, with a real life comparison that everyone can understand.
Me personally, I would rather technology perform the heavy lifting on my behalf, in the case skiing, lifting me up to the top of the mountain so I can focus purely on my craft, not hard work that is dissociated to me becoming better and the outcome.
And yes, you will always want to be involved in the content before it is published. AI does most of the work, you are still going to want to put your final touches on it. ;)