Danger, Use Caution - Power Tools in Use

The question is always asked in the forums I frequent (here too!)...

Am I "cheating" if I use AI to generate a post, and then review/edit it before publishing?

As many of you know from a previous post, I am fond of a new AI Power Tool I discovered on one of my Shiny New Things Tours. I have fallen in love with HARPA. While I continue to use it for rewrites over Grammarly, I have moved up to the summarize capabilities of Harpa.

I mentioned in a recent chat that my latest post was indexed within 2 hours of posting. I didn't even have to go through the process of requesting indexing. I must have gotten lucky and hit publish, just before the Google Indexing Bus arrived. But being indexed so fast, I asked HARPA for an "Executive Level Summary" of my post. This is what I got in return:

Executive Summary - Security Beyond Savings: Niche Blog For Retirement

Problem/Need Addressed:

Traditional retirement savings plans may not be sufficient for baby boomers approaching retirement age.

Recommended Solution:

Niche blogging for retirement income.

Key Takeaways:

* Niche blogging leverages an individual's expertise and online knowledge to create passive income streams specifically to supplement retirement income.

* The focus is on building an audience interested in a specific niche and then recommending products or services related to that niche through affiliate marketing.

Benefits and Value:

* Niche blogging offers an alternative approach to generating retirement income besides the traditional "Save X by 65" method.

* It allows individuals to tap into their existing knowledge and experience to create a source of income.

* Passive income streams continue to generate revenue with minimal ongoing effort.

Now this was taken from my post. With HARPA you can create this executive-level summary for ANY post. Imagine creating an executive summary for your major competitors so that you can outrank them. HARPA also has a feature called "OUTRANK THE POST".

What I did next was rework this NEW OUTRANK POST for Medium. It took only minutes to do. But all of this has led me to the real reason for starting this post.

I know, I took a roundabout way to get to this point. Does Using Power Tools Count As Cheating?

Is it cheating to use a spellchecker? Who is going to read something that has a ton of misspelled words? You use the spellchecker to polish what you wrote, both grammatically and to check for spelling errors. Is that cheating?

When ChatGPT was introduced, days worth of research was reduced to mere minutes. Albeit that some of the "facts" needed to be double-checked. It was after all limited to the cutoff date of its dataset. Using these new power tools, we have created an avalanche of content. Today, I use no less than 6 different AI tools for research and writing. Why do I use six different tools you ask?

Did you read my post where I asked all Five Chatbots to find me "The Most Profitable Underserved Niche"? Not one of the five gave the same answer when given the exact same three questions. My research is linked if you haven't read it.

Competing AIs Agree - Mastering Niche Selection is Not Easy!

Need I say more?

Power to the Prompts

I have created a complete set of prompts, thanks to the musings of Partha, the insightfulness of Jay, and a few others that I have gleaned from the internet.

With AI, I can create an all-encompassing outline. I even measure this against our AI Author outlines. Occasionally AI will win, other times our AI Author will. Both will have things to consider adding to your post, that you may not have thought about. That is a good thing when Google is on the warpath trying to E-E-A-T everyone's posts.

Once I have my outline. this is where I hit the fork in the road. Does Chatty or one of his cousins create the first draft or does our AI author? Or like this piece, do I take the time to write it? Yes, I am writing this one!

FYI The Professional Copywriter is more of a BING style, and the Conversational Blogger is more of a Claude.

So I use AI to create the first draft. Style points go to the tone and topic I am writing.

Am I Cheating?

But just like reading something full of grammatical mistakes or misspellings, no one will read something written entirely by AI. It has no depth, no experience, and really no use. There is nothing AI can write that will add something new and useful to the world.

Cut-N-Paste AI is on the level of SPAM. It is annoying and useless trash.

Remember, AI will not replace people. People who know how to use AI will replace those who don't!

We have all been provided with power tools, be safe, use your safety goggles, and go ahead and use them. But try and pass it off as original?

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