Just yesterday I was talking with a super smart entrepreneur and of course the topic of AI tools, ChatGPT, Art Generating AI tools came up as it always seems to these days. The entrepreneur marveled about the power of Chat GPT and said “My marketing person kicked out 80 blogs in one day!”
Uh what? 👀
That’s a good thing?
So if we’re all using AI to generate content and kicking it out in quantities of 80, 800, 8000 blogs per day just to feed the machine and make content quotas what’s the world going to look like? Is it going to be proliferated with competing AI content that makes SEO, search ranking, and thought leadership a Zero sum game?
Are we really that keen to be spamming the world with content? Isn’t that all that this is?
Is this the modern day version of the movie War Games? Where we keep firing content at people across the internet and they keep firing at us until our content war map is filled with content contrails and nothing else?
Look, AI tools are awesome. And they most certainly have their place. And to be clear what I am specifically talking about is content that is created with the intent of educating, showing though leadership, sharing what’s on your mind, and connecting at a deeper level with the audience.
But right now when I hear everyone talk about the content or the output they always qualify with “… it’s pretty good. Not perfect, but really good.”
Every. Single. Person. In every single conversation.
And that’s a bit of an issue.
It’s not like our content created by humans was perfect and so if AI content is even less so… is that a good thing?
What if we said…
“That airplane, it’s pretty good. Not perfect, but really good…”
“My surgeon, well she’s pretty good. Not perfect… but I’m not paying for it.. so cool…”
“You know my employer pays me mostly… they’re about 80% there...”
Look, we’re humans. We have the most highly tuned BS sensor in the world when it comes to recognizing authenticity and messages that make us feel something.
Messages and communications that have resonance.
And, I suspect… oh I’ll say it… I predict… that as we are overwhelmed with an onslaught of AI content that all feels similar — because the thing about AI? It has to draw the info from info it’s already seen. It’s not new.
It’s not original thought.
It’s been published somewhere.
It only makes sense that among all this noise it will be real, authentic, human generated content that will rise above and get noticed.
It will be human authored content that will continue to connect and resonate deep with other humans.
I’m betting that people are still going to resonate and connect with human insight, with human touch, a human voice.
And, if I’m on a high horse here, it just feels wrong. It doesn’t feel right to ME to send you an email, post on social, or publish a blog with my name on it when I didn’t write it. I know that feels old school.
Creating content. Writing. Publishing. Connecting through words and images. Is HARD.
It’s supposed to be hard!
That’s the point.
You know that I sat down (or stood when my back hurts) to write. And somedays it flows and other days it’s terrible struggle.
You know that some days I procrastinated and beat myself up. Why? Because you know I thought and obsessed about this - probably way too long. Because you know that I care about this. This is my truth. And I put this out into the world a bit excited but more often afraid of how it will be received. Because it’s me. It’s from my soul.
For ME the point of anything I publish or I put out into the world isn’t about spamming the world in an attempt in increase SEO (which again, I don’t think is going to work) or jumping in front of your eyeballs - it’s to have a conversation. To share with you a true little piece of what’s on my mind and how I think because that’s what I’d want in return.
Hopefully, every now and then, maybe I share something that makes you say “oh..” or makes you see the world just a little bit differently and lets you take that shift in perspective and apply it to make your life a little bit better.
OR
you just get to know me on a personal level. What I do for fun (snowboard, run when my body allows it, yoga when my body says no to running, kiteboard when there’s wind, savor coffee on a slow-roll Sunday morning, travel whenever I can and take pictures with a real camera to prove it, and hang with my family when they’ll tolerate me to name a few)
That’s the intent anyway.
I am not freaking out about AI nor am I ignoring it. The applications are fascinating and will affect just about every business — probably for the better.
It can be used as a brainstorming tool to get ideas. It can be used to help generate subject lines and titles of articles (the title of this article is still human generated via human intelligence - “HI” if you will) when you’re stuck. It is great for organizing your thoughts, distilling data, and assisting in robust research.
I think AI is going to assist in editing completed works and work as a tool in up level our original thought and probably 1000 other things I can’t see.
Like frameworks, AI begins the thinking not ends it.
It’s not about putting in a prompt and signing your name to something…. For the love of all things human in this world, please, please let’s not stop our thinking. It’s what makes life so rich and interesting. Beyond the ingrained need to procreate and carry on our DNA isn’t our original thought what makes life worth living?
Isn’t original thought what makes us HUMAN?
And this is where there is real opportunity.
For those who want to keep thinking. For those who want to do the hard, dirty work of being original creators, thinkers, and leaders.
I see an opportunity for content creators, brands, businesses, and people to differentiate themselves from the masses. Rise above the noise. And connect with existing and potential customers in ways that go beyond a single transaction and create raving, loyal customers for life.
There’s going to be a huge gap forming between the “haves” and “have nots” when it comes to creating content. Those who are still willing to do the hard, not always pleasant work of creating will continue to stand out, to connect, to resonate. And those who go the easy route, post 80 blogs in a day, and spam the world will fade into the noise.
The question is… who’s going to seize this opportunity. Who’s going to lean into authenticity and human connection? Who’s going to keep thinking and truly creating and who’s going to press the easy button with a simple prompt that says “give me 80 blog posts in my voice…blah blah blah”?
Thanks for reading and just know that anytime I publish content, post on social, or send you an email it’s really me. Always and forever.
And Dear Client: If I ever tell you that me or someone on my team wrote something rest assured we did. Because we know that's WHY you hire us. For OUR thinking. For OUR words. For OUR insights.
If that ever changes I’ll let you know. Because I’m not writing to an audience of AI bots, I’m writing to you.
That’s a promise from a real human to a real human.
Always Human -
Marc
