AI Creation vs AI Editing

• July 31, 2024

I learned about Wix’s new blog-writing tools thanks to a post by Jess Weatherbed at The Verge.¹ This will enable slop at massive scale. Heaps of garbage written by a machine to hopefully appease Google’s algorithms and trick people into thinking this site is written by another human. Wix’s large presence in the webhosting world means this has the potential to be an all-out assault on a human-led internet. I hope they reconsider this endeavor.

On a similar note:

My wife, who’s far less tuned-in to the AI-hype world than me, was equally grossed-out by Google’s ad during the Olympics² where a father encourages his child to use Gemini to write a letter to their hero.

How would you feel if you found out a disingenuous robot wrote a “heartfelt” letter to you?

Luckily we weren’t the only people who picked up on this detail and it went viral (in a bad way). Similar to the Apple’s Crush ad, I struggle to understand how this ad made it into the world. Did no one at these companies raise their hand to say, “Isn’t this gross?”

Upon seeing Apple’s Image Playgrounds at WWDC the same word came to mind: gross.

• Oh it looks like you made a lovely hand drawn sketch of a building? Let’s turn it to a super-fake, oversaturated, clearly-made-by-a-computer-abomination with one easy tap!
• Want a hyper-ugly-Pixar knockoff of your mom? Bon appétit.

I worry, as others do, that if we let machines create for us we’ll never learn how to create for ourselves. I write to become a better writer and to share my thoughts.

To clarify: I’m not against AI in its entirety. I’m not happy that every LLM-maker decided they could violate copyright and scrape the whole web. I’m concerned that more companies like Reddit will withdraw from searched indexes unless paid.

But I do think AI can be uniquely talented at editing. Someone who’s over my shoulder and can suggest ways to elevate my work, connect it to other things, and make me more efficient. Apple’s Writing Tools (if they work) skate the razor-thin line between creating and editing. The litmus test, I feel, is that they only ever make your text shorter, never longer.

To all the companies out there working on half-assed AI integrations: please redirect your focus to editing. Empower humans to be creative. Don’t fill the world with slop. I’m open to applauding and adopting AI but they have to help me. Not try to be me.

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