Using AI for Content Creation—When & Where it Makes Sense

Can AI replace me? 

Will AI replace me??

As Artificial Intelligence technologies like ChatGPT and Jasper AI have broken onto the scene, content creators, marketers, creatives, artists, and many more have asked these questions (and if you haven’t yet, you should!).

The world’s eyes have been opened to the possibilities of using AI for content creation (or for anything). But the shadowy side of AI is also coming to the surface. 

The idea that a robot or app or algorithm will be able to churn out a blog, like this one, or a movie script, or social media posts, or an illustration, or [insert content medium here] in a fraction of the time that a human would take is both enticing and terrifying.

(Spoiler alert, no AI was used in the crafting of this blog.)

The efficiency that comes with AI is very attractive to any business’s bottom line. 

But…

Efficiency doesn’t equal profitability.

Efficiency doesn’t equal visibility.  

Efficiency doesn’t equal trust. 

Efficiency doesn’t equal innovation. 

Efficiency is not inherently human. And neither is artificial intelligence.

If you look at it that way, then using AI for content creation is limited. It can only create from what has come before, meaning it can only iterate and never truly innovate. 

There’s nothing wrong with adopting new technologies like artificial intelligence into your processes. But doing so wholesale, without the right parameters in place, could wreak havoc on your business.

Using technology—any technology—to enhance your process, making it easier, faster, clearer, is a fantastic idea. 

But it can’t replace every step. 

We sat down to chat with our Founder, Jessica Zweig, to get her take and perspective on how AI will impact not only content creation, but personal brands at large. See what she had to say:

AI for Content Creation & Personal Branding | A Conversation with SimplyBe. Founder, Jessica Zweig

AI & personal brands—what does the future look like?

AI will make it easier to seem like an expert, but will raise the bar of what it means to actually be an expert. It’s possible for more and more people to pretend they’re an expert with AI, so the B.S. will become more saturated. I think true thought leaders or the people who have spent their life honing their expertise in a certain area are going to be able to poke holes. And so my prediction is that AI is going to make the importance of thought leadership—actual, true expertise—that much more important. I also think it’s going to require us to narrow down our unique areas of expertise and get really specific about what we ultimately want to be known for.

Is using AI for content creation really that bad? 

Sure AI can write punchier sentences, but I think the people who are going to win with AI are going to be able to use it for what it’s great at. For instance, you create the ideas and the bullet bullet points and AI can craft them into the format of a memo or a social post, or a punchy sentence. I think that’s a great use of AI—as, frankly, a timesaver, paired with your original thought.

But the people who are going to lose are the people who rely on AI to think for them. That’s where people are going to really start to fall. And I think that people who want to be experts, who want to be thought leaders but aren’t quite there yet, are going to fall into that trap. And that’s why narrowing down your expertise and mastering a one-of-a-kind message is going to become even more important. 

Our penchant for sniffing out bullshit needs to (and likely will by default) get more precise because it’s so easy to fake something that’s “well written.”

There’s also an art and creativity conversation when it comes to AI, and it produces so many new questions. Questions like “what does plagiarism mean now?” 

We say that art can’t be replicated, so where’s the line when it comes to AI? I think it comes down to what you can or can’t (and should or shouldn’t) outsource. Proofreading, editing, and ticky tacky tasks are all outsource-able and not infringing on others’ IP. In that use case, it’s making your original thought better. But the actual creation of art, I just don’t think it’s replicable or fair.

How will AI-powered personal brands affect our human relationships? The way we hire people? The way we work with our colleagues?

This technology is going to affect everything. There’s just no way around that.

I think the answer to all of these questions is… kind of. Think about, for instance, the journey of the “bot” on Instagram. At the inception of this concept, buying followers wasn’t the worst strategy for getting more engagement and getting more followers, right? People did that and it worked for a while, but now it’s been around long enough and people have wised up to it. And people who used bots to grow their social following in the past are now suffering the consequences.

Think about it—you know when an account is a bot account. And so when people start creating content to a critical mass that’s been written by AI, we’re going to start to catch on. You can’t hide behind it. You still need the critical thinking behind your content. AI can’t do critical thinking. I think that we’re going to wise up to it faster than people think. 

In terms of human relationships, hiring, work dynamics… I see there being a lot of spiderwebs of just completely unpredictable consequences. We as a human race need to have a honed spidey sense and really hold our sovereignty as human beings. We need to remember that AI is a technology. But the human body is a sacred technology. We create babies, we build buildings, we launch companies, we create not-for-profit causes—you can’t really manufacture that in a robot at the end of the day. We’re going to get close (ha!), but it’s never going to be exactly the same. 

This is the dawn of a new era, and it is a little scary. It’s inspiring to some degree that we’re part of this moment in time, but it’s important to remember to not outsource our power to it. 

There are sadly going to be winners and losers here. And that’s the scary part—disruption is not equal. What I mean by that is although AI will create countless jobs, there still will be a lot of jobs lost, there will be layoffs, there will be people who don’t bounce back from this. So saying how exciting it is and how exciting this new era will be doesn’t help those people. That’s a sad truth about disruption in general that we need to acknowledge.

Will authentic personal brands take a hit if we start using AI for personal brand content creation?

That’s a big question. But I think our saving grace is that AI cannot come up with new ideas other than what has already been done and what has already been said… and searchable online. AI cannot replace subjective analysis, creative ideation, or emotion. Everything you see in chatbots has already been thought of and/or created by another person.

So, no, I don’t think it’s going to dehumanize personal brand platforms. In fact, I think it’s going to make the world even hungrier for humanity and authenticity.

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In summary… embed technology where it makes sense, like in replacing clunky or antiquated systems. Let it help you where it can—that’s the reason for technology at large. But prioritize and allow room for your unique expertise to take the lead. Allow for agile shifts. Allow for the making of art. Allow for emotion and perspective. Allow for original thought and analysis. 

Allow for the human to shine through. Because that can never be replicated.