Can AI Write My Website?

AI is the hot button acronym at the moment.  So how helpful is AI and can we use it to write content for a website or social media?

As we waltz through this blog I will be using AI–ChatGPT, Claude, and Google Gemini (which changed its name from Google Bard)–interchangeably.  There are hundreds of AI tools on the market today, these are the three that I have the most experience with and are all AI “chatbots”; you ask questions and the robot brain sends answers back.

AI assistants are not going to force humankind into servitude. 

I asked three major AI systems about their self-awareness, trustworthiness and desires to lock our species away and I can say, unequivocally, we are safe.  When asked, “Are you self-aware?” Google Bard, ChatGPT, and Claude all responded that they were just helpful AI assistants.  When pressed further all reported they were nothing like HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey or had any of the access to physical systems that Skynet from the Terminator series has.  Plus, those are fictional worlds.

Interestingly enough, after getting bored of asking AI if it had plans to entrap me and harness my energy like a battery, I requested information about fixing my ice maker and got totally inaccurate advice.  I think we’re safe for the moment.

What is AI good at? 

AI is good at generating large amounts of content in seconds. 

Any AI system will be able to generate a large amount of content, quickly.  The content will sound like it came from a bland Wikipedia page, but if you’re just trying to get the facts, AI can deliver.

Data is generally superficial but that can be managed with additional prompting.  It’s not uncommon for users to tell ChatGPT to, “write a 1000-word article on George Washington and make it sound like a 4th grader wrote it.”  Asking the chatbot to be more detailed or write like the reader has a Ph.D. on the topic at hand can change the level at which the article gets written.

Trying to get AI to sound funny or lighthearted leads to the abuse of dad-jokes.  Although we call it 'artificial intelligence,' none of the systems is very good at making stuff up.  Try and get ChatGPT to make up a joke and you’ll get lame, well-known puns that would normally fill a “101 Jokes for 9-year-olds” kind of book.

AI is good for getting started. 

If I’ve got an idea for an email, blog post, or social media post, I can usually get started with help from ChatGPT.  The writing is horrible, granted…but AI is pretty organized when it comes to putting ideas together.  One of the telltale indicators that a review on Amazon has been written by AI is its nearly flawless organization.  Paragraphs, proper use of homophones (like they’re, their, there), and the lack of any personality are a dead giveaway for AI-generated content.

AI is a fun replacement for Google. 

“What are 20 words that rhyme with ubiquitous?”  ChatGPT can spit out lists of stuff like this all day long.  Things you used to ask Google for can now come with a little more detail and pulling from multiple Google results if you use ChatGPT.

AI helps you accidentally waste time! 

Unfortunately, writing this article took three times as long as it should have.  I got distracted once by asking each bot to prove it wasn’t sentient.  The second time I got caught in a rabbit hole that led me to AI generated artwork of the cast of “Parks and Recreation” in a “Mad Max” world.  The third time around I asked ChatGPT to write me a comprehensive guide on the care and breeding of ferrets, just to see what it would come up with.  You’ll be able to find my book on Amazon in March under the title: “Ferret Farm Field Guide: How one man used AI to follow a dream and ended up making his garage smell like ferret poo.”

Did you know that ferrets sleep up to 18 hours a day?  Thanks ChatGPT!

What is AI bad at? 

“Well, Quinn, can’t I just have AI write me a bunch of content?”  Sure you can, and it’ll suck.  At the moment, programs like ChatGPT are really good at writing remarkably bland content.  If you want a robot to write your content for you, it’s going to sound like a robot wrote it.

Dangers of duplicate content. 

Duplicate content becomes a risk when you use AI to write your stuff.  AI-generated content is usually superficial and repetitive.  As such, you run the risk of saying the same thing over and over again.  You also run the risk of creating a page that sounds too much like a competitor’s page who decided to do the same thing.

Risk getting "caught." 

People are really starting to pick up on AI-generated content.  Even human-written content that sounds too sterile gets a sideways glance from readers now.  One good indicator that a page has been written by AI is the use of “in conclusion…” at the start of the last paragraph.  Most chatbots, when asked to write 1000 words on a topic, will conclude by telling you they’re going to conclude.  “In summary,” is another well-used and cringeworthy way to close an article.

In conclusion… 

We at Surge Web Design take pride in our content writing.  Our content writers have years of experience writing websites that are easy to read for a human and optimized to suck up to Google's algorithms.  If you need help with your website or search engine optimization (SEO) , give us a call at (208) 391-3413 or email info@surgewebdesign.com