When to avoid AI in writing

I write every day and use generative AI tools extensively. Here's what I won't use AI to do. And what it’s exceptional for.

It's tempting to use AI to write everything.

After all, aren't there those prompt packs for everything under the sun, or the AI experts who claim AI can do it all?

Not so fast.

Understanding generative AI

As I wrote yesterday, if I were to sum up using AI for writing in just two points, it would be these:

• The great averaging machine: AI is exceptional at summarising content by "averaging" it out. Of course, AI will say nothing of note if it is left to itself, averaging everything to mediocrity.
• Hallucination prone: General LLM-powered AI will always find ways to hallucinate, even with explicit prompts and sandboxed environments. It’s fine most of the time, until it isn’t.

There are better AI models and those that are not so good. But these are two key characteristics of today’s AI models.

Verify everything

I've tried many techniques and used AI on content such as EDMs, reports, thought leadership content, fact sheets, white papers, and more.

What are two main challenges I face with AI?

• Wrong inferences: AI will produce well-written conclusions from the flimsiest of evidence. This can be useful for creative writing, but bad for most other types of content.
• Sum of the parts: AI can present an argument about anything. For niche topics for which it has limited data though, it will reuse common talking points - which can be completely wrong.

This means everything produced by AI must be manually verified, especially in specialised fields or if it’s based on uncommon knowledge.

If you are not an expert in the field or haven’t thoroughly edited the output - using AI-generated content wholesale is a sure way to be left looking like a fool.

And yes, there will be times when editing can take more effort than writing it from scratch.

Exceptional tool for writing

Make no mistake though. AI is an exceptional tool for writing bar none.

I use it daily for:

• Check grammar.
• Rewrite for clarity.
• Write the next line.
• Conclude an article.
• Find that precise word.
• Pin down an elusive idiom.
• Suggestions titles, subtitles.
• Create a bridging sentence, paragraph.

And more.

If you haven’t tried using AI yet, it’s time to start today.