AI Writing
The Impact of AI on the Writing and Editing Process
AI revolutionizes writing & editing! Explore the Impact of AI on the Writing and Editing Process and unlock new possibilities for writers and editors.
Artificial intelligence has fundamentally altered how content writing and editing are handled. More than just convenience, AI touches every stage of the process, from quickly fetching research to distilling complex topics into easily-understandable paragraphs. As AI continues to improve, the world that writers and editors alike know will change. What can you expect? Where are the opportunities and what are the challenges ahead? Let’s take a closer look.
Traditionally, writing and editing were purely human affairs, combining creativity, critical thinking and superior attention to detail. The process was understandably time-consuming and difficult and the end results depended heavily on the writer’s or editor’s skill and experience.
However, AI upended all of that with its arrival on the scene. New platforms and services allow users to leverage AI to the fullest even with no prior experience. With just a few simple prompts, AI can generate initial ideas all the way up to creating fully-drafted articles. Where AI truly excels, though, is in its ability to quickly analyze reams of data and draw upon it to create content that’s interesting and engaging.
One of the main ways it does this is through natural language generation or NLG technologies.NLG is the art and science of creating coherent, understandable text from structured data – bridging the gap between computer data and human language.
With NLG, the computer is able to take input data in the form of templates, numbers or other configurations, look at it to analyze patterns, identify those patterns and then pull out the most relevant pieces of data.
The system then organizes the material in a way that’s logical and makes sense. Text is planned and sentences generated, following the rules and logic of the language being used. All of this happens in mere seconds.
But NLG is just one piece of a very large, elaborate and interlocking puzzle. Through a combination of specific rules, statistical models and deep learning, AI generates ever more realistic, nuanced sentences that reflect human-like language.
AI wasn’t always so responsive or reliable, however. In order to fully understand and appreciate its impact on writing and editing, let’s take a brief step back to see how we got to this point.
AI tools can trace their roots back to the mid 20th century. Brilliant pioneer Alan Turing proposed the concept that one day, machines could simulate human intelligence. In the 1950s and 1960s, the first AI programs were developed. With names like the Logic Theorist and ELIZA, they showcased the potential for machines to performa reasoning tasks and process natural language.
The next decades were highlighted by a phoenix-like death and rebirth of various AI tools where new innovations sprouted and withered, mainly due to technical challenges and differences in funding. Once the Internet became more widespread and greater access to data and more computer power became commonplace, new breakthroughs in machine learning and natural language processing were made.
Moving on to the late 20th and early 21st centuries, we saw more sophisticated AI tools began to take shape. IBM’s Watson won Jeopardy! against a human contestant. And, just a few short years later, AI tools have been integrated into our life in surprising and unexpected ways. From voice-activated assistants to new vaccine trials and even autonomous vehicles, the age of AI is just getting started.
That brings us to the writing and editing process of today. How exactly did we go from machines that can compute, to machines that can think and respond like a human to the point that we use them in our daily work?
You may not realize it when you ask ChatGPT or Google Gemini a question, but in the background, sophisticated algorithms and learning techniques are being used to deliver answers. Both NLG and NLP technologies are at work, which in turn help the software understand and produce text that is “human-like” in nature.
The tools themselves are trained from incredible volumes of text and databases on the internet, including books, articles and many other sources, which help the machine learning programs “learn” different patterns,styles and nuances of language.
To make these tools work first requires a prompt or some kind of input from the writer. This could range from a basic question to a full-fledged set of instructions. The AI tool then processes the input, using its training data and algorithms to generate responses that make sense. Tools based on deep learning models like ChatGPT, analyze the input to understand the context of the question or request, and then tries to output content that aligns with it.
However, AI systems do more than just regurgitate existing content. They’re designed to incorporate the creativity and reasoning abilities of the human writer. With techniques like fine-tuning and transfer learning, they can adopt the style of a particular writer, write in a specific way or format the content according to different requirements. For example, it’s possible to go from creative writing, to a blog post, to technical documentation all on the same topic.
More recent advances in AI have included feedback loops wherein the AI refines the result based on its interaction with the user, including any corrections. This helps improve accuracy in the system over time and make content continually look and read more “human-like”.
However, despite their breadth of knowledge on seemingly any topic, AI tools are not without their limitations. Today’s tools still need human oversight to ensure that their responses are accurate, unbiased, appropriate and original.
Content creators can use AI to help draft and create content across a wide range of industries. Here are just a few ideas:
A common use of AI tools, particularly for the media and other organizations is to have AI produce articles, reports and stories from structured data. Content like financial reports, sports summaries or even weather forecasts can go from data points into a specific narrative in just a few keystrokes.
AI can look at current trends, searches and even social media to suggest topics that users will find relevant and engaging. This allows content creators to stay ahead of the curve by producing material that matches the user’s search intent and interests.
AI tools can help in the content planning phase by generating outlines based on a given topic. It can create a basic structure for articles including headlines and subheadlines, which in turn makes it easier for writers to organize their thoughts and ensure that a topic is covered to the fullest.
AI is fairly clever at coming up with some unique perspectives and creative ideas to help overcome writer’s block. It can create entire storylines, provide alternative phrasing and even infuse a narrative with new ideas or expressions.
AI tools can help writers and content creators design their content to cater to specific audience segments, building on existing personalization efforts. It can also suggest meta keywords, descriptions and other SEO techniques to help boost the content in search engines.
In cases where content needs to be published in several languages, AI-directed translation can help make the process faster. However, despite its advanced knowledge, depending on the language, some human oversight may be needed to ensure that the content flows grammatically and stylistically.
Editors can also leverage AI to help them shortcut the tedious work of editing and proofreading, including:
AI tools can spot and correct a variety of grammar errors, ranging from simple punctuation mistakes all the way to complex syntax issues. These tools have the capacity to go well beyond ordinary spelling and grammar checks, allowing for more comprehensive corrections that ordinarily would require a dedicated editor or proofreader.
AI can analyze text to make sure it fits the specific style and tone of a project. Whether the writing needs a more formal tone or a more conversational style, AI brings consistency to how these adjustments are made to keep sentence structure, word choice and expression uniform.
AI is able to suggest changes that can improve the readability of a text. This is particularly helpful if you’re looking to tailor existing content to a broader audience or to specific groups of readers. For instance, if you need to make technical documentation more understandable to non-experts, AI can provide you with options on how to do so. To learn the current readability level of your content, be sure to check out Originality.AI’s Readability Checker.
AI algorithms can compare texts against vast databases of published materials to flag possible instances of plagiarism. This can be helpful for journalists, academic institutions and others who need to ensure that works are properly quoted and cited. If you’d like to see such an AI tool at work, take a look at Originality.AI’s plagiarism checker. The tool can also optionally scan to see if AI has written all or part of the content, with up to 99% accuracy.
Until recently, AI wasn’t able to verify factual information by comparing it to trusted sources. With new innovations in fact-checking, it can now check and verify details more accurately. Originality.AI also incorporates a built-in fact-checker within the platform, making it an invaluable tool for journalists, academics and researchers whose results hinge on factual accuracy.
With AI, writers are finding themselves at a crossroads where technology doesn’t just assist with writing, it influences it. AI’s integration into different stages of content creation, from generating ideas to editing the final draft, means that writers must re-evaluate their skills and strategies.
As AI becomes more sophisticated and advanced, writers must be able to blend traditional skills with technological know-how. This means, for example, knowing how to leverage AI tools to build on their work without it costing them their creativity or unique voice. It’s a fine dance between using AI for drafting and editing, versus letting the technology take the lead or guiding it along the way.
In this way, writers need to develop a deep and detailed understanding, not of how AI itself works, but of what it can and cannot do, so that it complements their work, rather than replacing them outright. Using strictly AI to generate content makes that content sound too robotic and rigid. Using only human writers creates more interesting and engaging content, but at a slower pace. The agencies and businesses of today must find a way where both can work together seamlessly.
Beyond working together to complement each other’s strengths, it’s also important for writers to continually learn and improve, after all, AI certainly is. In just a few short years, technology has evolved well beyond anything we could’ve imagined, and at this point, it will continue to do so by leaps and bounds. Writers must be open to exploring new areas and skills, like data literacy, SEO and much more, enabling them to create content across a number of different channels.
No one can deny that AI marks a considerable evolution in how content is created and edited. Today more than ever, what’s needed is a complementary integration of human creativity with machine efficiency. As AI continues to learn and adapt, so too must writers and editors; enhancing productivity while preserving creativity.
AI tools don’t have to diminish the writer’s capabilities. Instead, it can enhance them, helping people to tell new stories and bridge new gaps in communication. Being able to not just face this challenge, but embrace it wholeheartedly will be the key to thriving as a writer or editor in an AI-powered world.
