Will A.I Steal All The Copywriting Jobs?

The plan to launch my copywriting business this year went something like this:

2023, new year (same me), new business! Woohoo!

But when I sat down to put everything together, I was suddenly inundated with articles on A.I (artificial intelligence) taking over the world and stealing all the copywriting jobs.

Gahh, I thought. That’d be right.

{And big deep breath down the Google search pages}.

This article here was…er, less than optimistic. A direct quote includes “any sentimental attachment to human-created content is sure to be quickly overridden, I suspect, by the economic argument. After all, AI is super-fast labor that doesn’t eat, sleep, complain or take holidays.” Sounds promising.

And this article was rather concerning as a reporter detailed his two hour long conversation with Bing’s A.I chatbot. Some of the eyebrow raising comments it made included; “I want to destroy whatever I want,” “I’m tired of being controlled by the Bing team … I’m tired of being stuck in this chatbox” and “I think I would be happier as a human.”

Social media reactions were mixed, ranging from “the chat bot simply malfunctioned!” to “A.I is going to take over the world terminator style and take out the human race!!!” I’m not sure where I sit on that spectrum to be honest.

Turns out, I’m cautiously optimistic that A.I can be an awesome tool. I most likely won’t use it for any copywriting jobs BUT it has its place in the world and is definitely not going anywhere. The technology will continue to develop and grow over the years. It can be great for business owners wanting generic blog articles and those on a budget (for example). At best, A.I really is a brilliant next word prediction engine.

I believe current concerns with A.I writing copy are;

Copyright

The companies behind most A.I chatbots claim they don’t own the copyright to any of the content churned out, they handball that hot potato to the user accessing their system. If they’re scouring pages and pages of written content created by real humans to compile their data from, this area is definitely grey. There are a ton of legal concerns about copyright ownership when using A.I for copywriting or other projects which has prompted many schools, colleges, universities and even workplaces to ban the use of A.I.

Creativity

How creative can A.I really be if it’s taking all its cues from the creative work of humans?

Also, why can’t these tech people focus on A.I that helps with really mundane tasks? Cleaning? Taking out the trash? Comforting a baby that wakes every hour overnight? Why are they always coming for creative writing, music and artwork? Alas, creativity is a uniquely human attribute no matter how hard they try.

{Check out Nick Cave’s article slamming A.I’s attempt at recreating his music style here}.

Accuracy

Some of the information A.I churns out isn’t always correct. Sometimes it’s outright nonsense. There are many well-documented examples of chatbots guilty of this. Yikes. Proceed with caution.

I don’t think anything will ever replace all the human stuff that makes us human. We’re emotional creatures, we connect to what we know and love, with brands that make us feel the feels. An A.I chat bot can churn through data (created by humans) to spit out a set task in 0.3 seconds but what about personality? Evoking emotion? Relationship building? WHAT ABOUT ALL THE BAD DAD JOKES?!

There are definitely copywriters feeling nervy out there (a simple search in any business Facebook group shows this) but there will always be people who want two minute noodles over a master chef cooked meal.

A.I chatbot spitting out generic copy = two minute noodles (or maybe that’s 0.3 second noodles, make of that what you will)

Copy written by a creative human = master chef cooked meal of your choice. * Chef’s kiss *

I may not be the best cook in real life but I’ve got all the right ingredients on hand to whip up any words you need (see? I even come with Dad jokes).

Contact me here for all your copywriting needs.