Who Wants to Read AI Stories?
Is there a place on Medium for AI-generated stories
Artificial intelligence writing apps have become so good recently that many people are using them to produce SEO-rich content faster than ever before. That may be good for moving a website up the search engine rankings, but let’s face it, who wants to read AI-generated content? Nobody.
AI-generated content searches the web to build stories based on keywords, introductory paragraphs, or the main points the writing engineer wants to drive home. That may save the well-intentioned writer time. But since the tool is filling the story with outside sources, it is highly probable that should a writer choose to use one of these tools, their article will contain plagiarized content without them even knowing it.
Medium is a place for writers and thinkers. Posting AI-generated stories insults the intelligence of everyone on the site. For writers using AI, you may get early reads and follows. But they will not sustain an audience without the sincerity and care for their audience that a well-crafted story can deliver. Editors discover the sources of these artificial articles when they put them through the review process, revealing that very little if any, original insight is included in the story. For readers, finding a discrepancy in styles from the article wreaks of a con job, and we feel violated.
To be honest, when I was first introduced to AI writing via Jarvis.ai I was thrilled. Wow, I thought, I can increase my content by 3–4X per week. However, once I started using the tool, I became disheartened. Of course, the stories were magnets for the web spiders, but the writing did not sound like me. It wasn’t authentic. Artificial Intelligence gives you artificial writing.
It may be good for first drafts, but fellow writers had better run a plagiarism checker, so you can quote your sources. Then give those stories an authentic spin in the next round of edits. It will not, however, replace the human touch. It is incapable of creating tension and revealing details at just the right moment. AI writing platforms can’t reveal the pain or pleasure in the heart of the would-be writer as they vulnerability reveal themselves paragraph by paragraph.
There is nothing worse than investing your time into reading a story and arriving at the end with a reaction of so what. For the reader to feel their time was well spent, the writer must pay attention to the details of their prose. Don’t depend on the technology to do that for you.
So, I ask you, writers, to take the time to write authentically, sharing your own thoughts and opinions, not just meeting word counts.
And fellow readers, take time to celebrate the writing and writers that provide authentic commentary and details worth remembering by engaging them with highlights, comments, and multiple claps. As you read, keep your guard up for those who think they can pull the wool over your eyes by dashing off a story with the help of artificial intelligence on whatever topics are trending at the moment, passing it off as original thought. They may have ulterior motives.