Let us keep an open mind as we take this journey. If you have read a lot about similar topics, you will find writers concluding that human copywriters are still the best. Some will say AI Robots are taking over copywriting and they are the best. Other writers weakly try to force a balance between the two. For the sake of the business owner, a cold-stone unbiased assessment is key. And that, my friends, is what this article gives. Human copywriters or AI Robots who is the best copywriter? While AI robots taking over copywriting, should you engage AI or human copywriters?
What effective copywriting is about
Effective copywriting is about communicating in a way that addresses a customer’s needs and moves them to engage the services which a business offers. The copywriter is the middle man between the business solution and the customer’s needs, and the copywriter’s tool for this task is effective content. The scale has often been described thus:
For the content to work, the content has to have a good hook line that will draw leads to the content; the first paragraph or beginning has to be psychologically effective showing empathy, interest, suspense and/or promise; the content works even better where it is backed with stats and authority; at the end, the reader must be left with no hanging doubt especially where it is a sales copy; at the end, the reader or viewer is engaged enough to follow through the call to action (CTA) if any. But that is not all.
The content must be good enough to pop up on search engines over time. The content should mirror the minds-keywords expected to be typed by the target audience. Yes, the copywriter is a psychologist of a sort. Of course, the piece should be error-free or barely with errors. The language must be comprehensible to the target reader. These are the basics, the minimum standard of a good copy.
Strength of AI Copywriting
The truth is that AI can analyse, understand and generate the languages that humans use naturally in order to interface with computers in both written and spoken contexts using natural human languages instead of computer languages. This is done through what is known as Natural language Processing (NLP). A division of NLP is Natural Language Generation (NLG). NLG is the part where the computer produces human language. So, where NLP is teaching a computer how to read, NLG teaches it to write.
The writing skills of AI robots are so good that even the New York Times and Reuters depends on AI writing skills. Even a novel written by an AI was nominated for an award. Why do we assume AI cannot write effectively? That is so wrong! Here are the facts:
- AI Robots read more books and content in a day than human copywriters could ever read in a year. So when we say a writer is a reader, we actually give more credit to AI.
- How many people do you meet within a day? How many have you met in your lifetime? Well, imagine meeting petabytes of information written or searched by humans in their petabytes from across the world. That is the number of persons AI meet and study daily. This affords AI the ability to understand human needs and various target audiences. It is called the power of machine vision.
- Because of AI’s exposure to information, AI Robots have been praised for their ability to debate and contradict positions – a tool necessary for high-level copywriting. An example is IBM project Debater.
- AI now have the ability to create high-level content, graphics to go with it, and even soothing music on the background. AI’s ability to create continues to improve as it migrates to deep-machine language where it is able to rewrite itself and practically do almost everything a human can do.
- The greatest worry for copywriters is the claim that AI can read the mind and track and undertsand human emotions. One who can read the mind and track your emotions and suggest actions that can help you? Wow, that is a killer, and no wonder human copywriters on the subject talk less about this when they deal with the topic – Are AI Robots taking over copywriting, should you engage AI or human copywriters?
Strength of Human Copywriting
The human being’s cognitive ability is a wonder which we cannot fathom because we are the subject and object of the wonder. Common sense possessed by humans is rarely put in a book or captured on the internet. Because some common sense is lacking on the internet, AI is unable to possess that skill. A popular example is when Silicon Valley Director, Kelvin Lacker, asked GPT-3 an AI of a state of the art model, which is lighter between pencil and toaster? The AI replied that ‘a pencil is heavier than a toaster’. The reason for this massive failure of the deep-learned AI is obvious – common sense was not available to be learnt.
Do not think that the idea of collating the human’s activities from childhood or appointing an AI Robot to watch from birth to death, has never been tried. One perfect example of such a project is the Cyc. The Cyc project started in 1984 and continues to the present day. That is to say that our AI is now 37years old and cannot answer whether a pencil is lighter than a toaster.
Furthermore, ethics is an intrinsic part of the human mind. Whether it is innate or acquired is a debate for another day. While some have argued that a newborn has some level of ethics upon birth, some said a child acquires it from 2-5years by observation of the actions in his/her environment. Ethics allows copywriters to reason and relate to human problems in an emotional and convincing way. On the other hand, the failure of Microsoft chatbot Tay is evergreen. The AI – Tay, was put on Twitter to engage with humans and to tweet. In no time, Trolls took over Tay and got him to tweet awful copies like “Hitler was right” and “I hate feminists and they should all die and burn in hell.” Tay was instantly removed by Microsoft.
Inspiration to write and stories to tell are on the streets. This is why good copywriters hardly stay at an office desk ruminating on what to write. Robots are not free to walk about in some countries today. The human recognition of daily events and how they evoke a copywriter’s feelings and influence writing is a beauty. The human’s ability to naturally feel pain, hatred, empathy and sympathy is incredible. In fact, the human ability to know when to discard logic, and become sentimental, is another good quality of copywriting.
The weakness of AI and Human Copywriters
Judea Pearl, an AI luminary noted “The language of algebra is symmetric: If X tells us about Y, then Y tells us about X.” “Mathematics has not developed the asymmetric language required to capture our understanding that if X causes Y that does not mean that Y causes X.” says Judea, who for years has been at the forefront of the movement to build AI that understands causation.
The above problem summarises the weakness of AI as a copywriter. But does it mean that the human copywriter is perfect? far from it. The human copywriter is prone to grammatical errors, limited in keyword research or at least in real-time keyword research. The human copywriter catalogue of readings is but limited. The human copywriter’s logic is sometimes, flawed. The human copywriter is no match for AI when it comes to search engine optimisation (SEO) because AI can better understand how the mind of an AI (search bot) works.
So, Should you engage AI or Human Copywriter?
I think it is pretty obvious now that both AI and Humans are imperfect for the business owner’s need. If you engage an AI you run a risk of grave emotional error that may lead to brand alienation. You also run a risk of not communicating effectively for purpose. You risk customers due to inadequate empathy needed for conversion. On the other hand, if you engage a human copywriter, you carry the risk of low success in advertising due to a lack of adequate information. You carry the risk of delay in delivery. You carry the risk of low success in SEO. So, should you engage AI or Human Copywriters?
Conclusion
Sometimes we fall into problems when we think the choices are either ‘this or that.’ Thinking outside the box can produce ‘those’. I would rather equip the human copywriter with an AI and prefer the human copywriter anytime. If cost is a problem, I would rather choose the human copywriter that has integrated AI into his/her services. Of course, there are different copywriting costs. But wouldn’t you rather have the best? DeCritic is one hell of a copywriting agency that has since mastered the fine mixture of scientific writing (AI copywriting) with the purity of the arts (human copywriting).
DeCritic is a global leading copywriting agency and the multi-award-winning Nigeria’s best copywriting agency. We help marketers, businesses and individuals to communicate effectively, turning words into gold and multiplying leads. Our skilful copywriters and our state of the arts technology is our pride. Send us an email at contact@decritic.com
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