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?
The world has problems with Litterbugs!I have one word for you, DON'T!
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Recent Comments
17
Caution always Donald, but when used correctly it's certainly not cheating in my book!
Will have to check out HARPA though!
Appreciate the share my friend! :-)
Would you rather use a chainsaw or an axe to cut down a tree? Chainsaw all the way, baby! But use caution. HARPA is my chainsaw today!
Thanks for the insight. I often struggle with using AI. I like to go through those articles and personalize them after I ask AI to write me something. Because, quite frankly, the AI written ones can be really BORING! They have no life.
Thanks again for your post.
Karin
Karin,
You are so correct about AI writing. It is dead, lifeless words strung together in a fashion that the computer has seen previously. BORING!
It does not know right from wrong, real from imagined. You see it, I see it, and when we run across it, we jump off the page.
Google is aware of our on-page time and will reduce that page ranking because we jump off it. The same happens when people run across our "laziness". They jump and run.
This is the cautionary tale of using AI. The way you handle it is still the best way. Shape it into your words.
Thanks for reading my post.
MrDon
Dan,
My brain runs much faster than my fingers. The good lord only knows how much I depend on a spell checker.
Have you tried HARPA yet? It will take time to corral, but I have had good results with it.
Yes, the power is in the prompts!
I found a website that provided 75+ prompts on a vast number of topics that was worth the effort to bookmark!
Great stuff, man!
Rudy
See more comments
Great post.
Using AI isn't a problem at all, in fact, even Google has come out and said that they have no problem with AI generated content. But they do have a problem with low quality content, and spam content, and that would be posting 100s of articles a day.
And AI can't replace humans, it probably never really will be able to. So add a bit of "human" into your content!
Jonathan,
Very true. In the beginning, Google said that AI content was not going to be indexed. Then it got flooded with AI content, and it had to compromise and say that some AI content was ok if it was helpful.
This is a topic that I follow as we are witnessing a war between Google and the Bots. BARD hasn't measured up, yet. I say yet as the only way Google keeps its King of the Web status is by having the best bot.
So use all of your power tools responsibly.
Enjoy the day, and thank you for reading this post.
MrDon