Generative AI-based chatbots (like ChatGPT) divide opinion among creatives; some have embraced AI, others mistrust it, some feel it is cheating, and others see it as essential. Whatever your opinion, you cannot deny AI’s ability to create stuff faster than any other approach.

Because of this, many (most?) creators have adopted AI within their approaches to some degree. There is nothing wrong with this per se; I mean, who doesn’t enjoy saving time and effort?

However, there is a growing issue that I have personally experienced in my role as a copy editor. The creative world is being flooded by talentless charlatans who are over-reliant on AI, and the content they’re producing is, frankly, complete horseshit.

As a freelance, third-party editor, this causes me a big dilemma. I either get my head down and edit (rewrite) the copy, or I kick up a fuss, grass the writer up to their boss, and hope that this doesn’t ruin professional relationships. I don’t work directly for my customers, so I prefer to keep my relationships healthy.

Surely, there has to be a way to fix this dark side of AI-assisted creativity? Well, I think there might be.

AI Can Produce a Mountain of Garbage

Since ChatGPT arrived, the amount of rubbish copy I’ve had to review has been ridiculous. I can normally tell from the first sentence, which often begins, “In the realm of… “. As soon as I see those four words, I know the piece will be crap.

Using AI in this way doesn’t make the creative process easier or faster; it just shifts the burden to the right. Writing content now takes less time, but rewriting, editing, and QA take much more effort.

There’s also the issue of marking your own homework. When the editor completely rewrites a piece, who does the final review? You always need a third party to check copy over and make necessary tweaks.

This right-shifting isn’t limited to copy either; it’s prevalent wherever AI is involved in the creative process.

I’ve spent my life working in tech. Some of my best mates are software engineers and SREs, and they’re telling me the same thing. Yes, AI can smash things out quickly, but its output is rarely of the requisite quality, and at the very least, it needs human intervention to tidy it up.

AI is Changing The Focus of Creative Processes

Here’s the thing, though: I’m a pragmatist at heart. I’m also a massive fan of AI, and I understand its application and potential. People will take shortcuts and cut corners wherever possible, and you know what? That’s okay, at least when the creatives have domain expertise and can check the AI output.

Unfortunately, there is a growing cesspit of charlatans out there who claim to be writers, developers, you name it… But in truth they don’t know shit, and instead they’re just copying and pasting directly from chatbots. And from what I’ve seen, a lot of them are getting away with it.

The Cat is Out of The Bag

So what can we do about it? Well, we could try to eliminate the quacks that have infiltrated the creative world, but I doubt we’d get anywhere. Faking your way with AI is too easy a grift, and evidently, employers are suckered in by these shysters.

Trying to get rid of them would be like tackling zombies, with more appearing and slowly infecting the whole world with their lazy and unskilled approach.

Should We Move Directly to The Endgame?

Another extreme option is to bite the bullet, admit what’s happening, and move human effort and expertise to the back end of the process – i.e. editing and QA.

After all, we’re seeing the start of the commoditisation of the creative process, so why not give in to it?

Generative AI-based chatbots are already generating code, copy, images, and even videos, and this trend is going to continue and accelerate until we reach the end state – where AI handles the grunt work of most creative processes.

Again though, like trying to eliminate the charlatans, this won’t work. AI just isn’t there yet. You’d need a human to rewrite the content and, as I alluded to earlier, another human to edit.

No, outsourcing the whole writing process to an AI is not feasible and won’t be for the foreseeable future. It might help get rid of the grifters, but it won’t alleviate any of the effort.

So, What is The Solution?

AI is here to stay. It provides too many benefits to ignore, but we still need humans to play a big part in any writing process. So clearly, there needs to be a middle ground.

I know many people who hide their AI usage and do not want their employers to know how heavily they rely on AI to hit their deadlines. This causes all sorts of trust and integrity issues, but crucially it means that everyone is a bit guilty, so nobody wants to speak up.

People using AI effectively don’t want to be called out in it, so they’re less likely to point out when their colleagues are completely outsourcing to AI incase it opens up pandoras box.

The solution to this is pretty simple: remove AI’s secretive status.

To fix things, employers (for want of a better word) need to face facts, pull their heads out of the sand, address the elephant in the room, and:

1. Accept their creative staff are using AI
2. Actively encourage or instruct their staff to use it
3. Provide clear guidelines on when and how to use AI
4. Educate themselves on AI capabilities and limitations

This way, everyone will benefit from AI and become used to it. Processes will be faster, and people won’t have to pretend they’re not using it.

Colleagues, reviewers and editors will be able to openly discuss and question AI usage, and call people out when they’re adding no value (or actually subtracting value) without fear of being exposed as AI users.

Bosses/employers/commissioners will be able interrogate prospective hires on their AI strategy with a higher degree of knowledge and confidence. They’ll be more aware of the games these swindlers play and will know what to ask for, what to look out for, and be more likely to smell a rat.