I’m sure by now you’ve read a lot about AI writing content or producing artwork. In one way, AI writing tools help you produce articles or books with simple prompts, cutting down the time it would take for humans to do the same. The two questions many people are asking are if these ‘tools’ plagiarize and copy content, and if you can trust them.
I have two disclaimers before I present my answer. One, I am human and not AI, so no tool was used in creating this article. Two, I’m not trying to advertise any AI writing tools, much like other articles you’ll see on this topic.
So, now to the questions at hand. No, AI writing tools don’t copy content and they don’t plagiarize. Well, not the really good ones anyway. How they work in theory is by scanning the internet, learning from what we’ve presented online. From the knowledge they gain, they deliver content in a new way.
Which is not very different from SEO practices, actually. If you look at that definition above, developers have taught AI how to take SEO methods and craft articles that should rank well.
What do I mean? Well, I’ve been working with SEO for more than four years now. I remember the Skyscraper method that was all the rage a few years ago, and probably still is. We used to take a topic, use different methods to compare the top articles on Google, and determine which headings and content would be best to rank on top. Then, we would rewrite the content in a unique, better way while ensuring that we avoid plagiarism….
Much like AI writing tools are doing, just faster…
Just last year, I had a SEO Chrome plugin that would appear when I searched for topics. It would then suggest an outline and what content I should cover if I wanted to write an article about it. Knowing what I know now, I would say that was already a sign of the AI writing tools that have suddenly appeared in the last few months.
Can you trust AI writing tools? Well, nothing can replace human writing. Sure, you won’t need to worry about plagiarism, as most of these tools make sure they don’t copy and paste. It might paraphrase and rewrite content, but you won’t see exact articles copied over.
That’s why so many writers are worried that they may be losing their freelance jobs. Fortunately, I’ve been noticing many companies using AI detection tools to see if content is written by AI or humans. So, not only are they checking for plagiarism, but also fake articles.
Perhaps there’s hope for us yet.
