AI-Generated Content Holds Promises As Well As Perils

Artificial intelligence has made tremendous strides in recent years—from beating human champions at chess to revolutionizing self-driving cars and setting up life-like virtual assistants. Now, AI is putting its creative hat on and venturing into the world of content generation. While AI shows great promise for automating routine, and mundane, writing tasks and producing large volumes of content, its use also raises important questions about originality, quality and its impact on jobs. The question whether—or even when—AI will eventually replace human intervention in writing is being hotly debated even as we write this piece.

Let us take a closer look at how AI is shaping the future of content and the challenges it present.

On the positive side, AI content holds potential benefits for productivity and economies of scale. With the help of AI, businesses can generate basic articles, blog posts, social media updates and other forms of written work much more quickly than humans can. This allows companies to inundate their websites and online channels with a constant stream of fresh content to engage customers.

In recent times, AI algorithms that are capable of producing not only articles, but even poetry and novels have emerged. These AI-generated pieces often demonstrate impressive linguistic capabilities and can closely resemble varied scholastic writing styles. This development has been greeted with both excitement and concern by authors and creative writing buffs. However, leading publishing companies like Amazon, as well as admission officers of leading universities, have strong reservations—and rules—against using AI for books written by aspiring authors and SOPs written by aspiring students.

From a commercial point of view, there are open questions around how to integrate AI creativity while respecting copyright and paying creators for their work. Some debate whether AI should even be termed an ‘author’ or assigned legal rights over its writing. These issues take on greater importance as AI systems become more general and human-like in their abilities.

While the final output can still be riddled with errors, biases, or simply plain bad or basic writing, and even though the programme, at present, has not been creating as much as collating data and replicating common patterns, a future may not be too far off when artificial intelligence processes even more data, ‘learns’ from it and gets more adept at writing at frightening speed.

In spite of these apparent advantages, the idea that AI will one day completely make human intervention in creative writing defunct remains a matter of debate. Creative writing is an immersive human endeavour involving intuition, emotions and subjective thought processes based on analysing deeply personal experiences. It involves crafting content that resonates with readers at an emotional level, building empathy and connection between creator and consumer.

These attributes are intrinsically tied to the human condition, making it challenging for AI to replicate human experience and feelings with the same authenticity and depth. Creative writing is not merely an exercise in stringing words together, but involves exploration and simulation of ideas, expression of unique angles of thought and, mostly, ability to capture the spirit of human existence. It requires wide imagination, intuition and a profound understanding of the intricacies of language.

Although AI algorithms have the capacity to mimic different styles of writing, they often lack the creativity that thrives on capriciousness and extrapolation of imageries and sensitivities of original writing that stems from the human mind’s capacity to think outside the box, challenge conventions and generate fresh ideas. AI algorithms, instead, rely on patterns collated from existing data. It can generate content that conforms only to existing and established structures, but is yet to produce path-breaking work.

Another plus point for AI, for the first time, is that it makes it feasible for companies to automatically localize content for different regions and languages. Language has always proved to be a significant barrier in consumption of media content. However, AI-based translation apps have significantly broken down these barriers. State-of-the-art machine algorithms can provide real-time translations of text, audio and video content, allowing media organizations to cater to a global audience, facilitating cross-cultural communication and enabling a wider range of viewers to access content.

A recent article in Nieman Reports says that, in the months immediately following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, tens of thousands of Ukrainians displaced by the war who fled to Finland had a great deal of difficulty understanding local public broadcasts in Finnish. The broadcaster, Yle—which served news in English, Russian and Swedish, besides the local language—had no journalist who knew the Ukrainian language. It circumvented the problem by employing AI to translate news for its new hordes of listeners in a significant instance of AI taking over the Newsroom.

Going beyond translation, new AI content models, such as GPT-3, demonstrate an impressive ability to write coherently on virtually any topic based on a few examples or prompts. There is one school of thought which says that, with further refinement, AI systems may one day mimic—or even surpass—human creativity. Proponents argue this will free up people to focus on more complex tasks while delivering personalized content at Internet speed and scale. Consumers could see an explosion in the variety and volume of information and entertainment at their fingertips.

However, AI content raises valid issues about originality, bias, transparency and ethics. While AI systems can regurgitate and remix facts, their content eventually derives from training data which may mirror unwanted human prejudices. Regulators have pushed for better oversight of AI to address problems, such as toxic language models and ‘deepfake’ content that aims to mislead rather than inform.

For media and content industries, AI promises both opportunities and threats to jobs. On one hand, tasks like routine article generation can be handed off to AI, freeing up people for more strategic roles. However, many content creation jobs, such as journalism, copywriting or public relations services, may ultimately be replaced over time as AI systems master narrative, personality and different styles of discourse. This could undermine livelihoods if transitions are not properly managed.

In conclusion, while AI shows great potential to augment content creation, its use also triggers debates that societies are only starting to grapple with. As with other transformative technologies, both opportunities and challenges will arise as AI stretches the boundaries of authorship and creativity. With open dialogue and foresight, we can help ensure that the promise of AI outshines its perils for writers, consumers and content industries of tomorrow. Only time will tell if AI can pen its way into our hearts as a true creative collaborator, or a competitor. (IPA Service)