From robotics to artificial intelligence, there’s no hiding from technological advancement. Although innovations like Amazon’s Alexa are old news, much of modern technology is still centred around user convenience and boosting productivity – so how far has technology come with regards to writing? We first explored this topic in June of 2020, but has the pandemic slowed progress? Join Wordsmith and let’s see if AI writing has improved since!
A brief recap
AI Writer is a programme that we previously reviewed. After signing up for a free trial, we gave the programme the prompt “Will artificial intelligence replace copywriters?” – and following a 2-minute wait, we were presented with an article cobbled together with sourced content that the AI determined to be the most relevant.
Although there was some semblance of a narrative, the results were expectedly unspectacular – the AI has difficulty flowing two different points together, some quotes are inserted without rhyme or reason, and the writing perspective shifts from third person to first then back to third. It was clunky and difficult to follow – but after 2 years, have the algorithms improved?
Here’s what the same prompt led to (after a new trial account was made):
The latest edition is certainly more cohesive and planned out than its predecessor, and as the website has promised on the home page, it’s also packed with keywords optimised for SEO.
However, the copy is not perfect either.
Throughout the article, the AI writer repeatedly states that “AI will not be replacing human writers” anytime soon – and while repetition is a powerful tool for emphasising a point – there is a limit before repetition becomes redundancy. By the end of the article, it’s tiring reading variations of the same line over and over again.
Furthermore, the programme has a strong preference for writing in the first-person perspective. Given that the website has listed news and entertainment studios like NBC, Fox and ABC on their home page as key users, you’d think that the app would default to third person. Perhaps the developers wanted the programme to appear sentient, but while the first-person is great for opinion pieces or journals, we find that the third-person commands a more persuasive and objective tone – which is essential for when you’re trying to sell your content to a wide audience.
“Many AI copywriting tools are also very incoherent, and they generate large volumes of content which cannot be published without at least some degree of [re]writing and editing.”
The AI writer may not be perfect, but it is self-aware! The programme is also aware of the lack of a “human connection” (or empathy and emotional factor) in computer-written copy… But even considering the limitations, it’s impressive how AI Writer cooked up a full story – complete with sources – in a scant 2 and a half minutes no less. It’s definitely not a suitable replacement for a lead writer, but it’s great as a handy assistant (albeit one that you have to keep on a short leash)!
One more for good measure
Let’s take a look at another programme available online – Sudowrite – an AI writer more suited for creative writing with stellar reviews from The New York Times, The Washington Post and novelists such as Hugh Howey.
After signing up for the trial, the programme also requires a prompt before it can put together a story. Unlike AI Writer’s very short prompt requirement, Sudowrite needs a minimum of 50 words before it can work. It’s a little more thought intensive, but from our experience working as an agency, this makes plenty of sense – the more details a client (in this case, us) provides the agency (the programme), the better the quality of work and the less reliance on guesswork.
Given that the programme specialises in creative writing, we thought a prompt focusing on “creativity and how to conjure topics for content writing” to be very suitable. Here’s what Sudowrite cooked up:
The programme generates two options (with unique narratives) for us to choose from in response to the prompt – kind of like what you’d expect from an advertising agency! For our example, Sudowrite presented an analytical option with a sequence on how to do it as option A, and a more metaphorical option B via the “cheat sheet” analogy.
Sudowrite also has a unique describe it function. After selecting a subject (our example being “a mahogany desk”), the programme then uses the 5 senses to describe the phrase. It’s very handy when we aren’t feeling particularly expressive that day!
Now for the big question – is Sudowrite good? Looking at option A alone, the outline is flawed and the details provided are barebones and sometimes not relevant – for example, how can we “understand the topic” in point 1 when we don’t even know what we are writing about? The following points “create a list of ideas” and “make a mind map” are also tied to point 1, but with a bit of finessing, you could use these subheads as a starting point.
What makes Sudowrite stand out is its capacity for descriptiveness. Depending on your needs, you can adjust the level of descriptiveness from concise to a George R.R. Martin paragraph. Now that’s impressive.
Whether using AI Writer or Sudowrite, expecting any programme to do all the work for you just isn’t the way to go. However, these programmes are proficient at gathering sources and giving you clues for your story’s narrative – provided you can feed the AI enough information to help it get started. But are AI writers going to replace human copywriters? Not at the moment (thankfully). Programmes still haven’t perfected the editing process nor can they grasp the magic behind emotional and empathetic writing. There’s no saying when this might happen, but until that day comes, machines will always play second fiddle to a proper copywriter!