A Robot Can Write Your Blog. Should It? (2022 Update)

I’ve been worrying about robots again.

I was worried a year ago when I learned that people had begun using Artificial Intelligence software to write their business blogs. Was our content-writing business about to be replaced - by robots!?

My fear subsided when I checked some A.I. writing, which ranged from bland to inane. But a year after I wrote this post, A.I. writing has become hotter than ever. So, I thought it was time to take another look at the newest robots stepping up to replace me. 

What is A.I. Writing?

A.I. content writing services make thrilling claims. Just put in a theme and an entire blog post appears in minutes. Cheap, fast, and easy!

Artificial Intelligence software learns through observation. You can’t simply program software to write like people because no programmer can encode all the internalized rules, assumptions, cultural norms, and more that contribute to an author’s style. But you can create software that finds the commonalities among many pieces, deduces the rules, and then attempts to mimic what it has observed.

A simple example is the wonderful InspiroBot, which has learned the simple rules of inspirational posters and can randomly generate an “inspirational” phrase over a striking image. Like this:

So, if A.I. can create inspirational posters by studying inspirational posters, it should also be able to create a great post on contract law by reading every article on contract law.

Right?

A Look at Some A.I. Blogging Services

A year ago I experimented with AIWriter, which would write an article for you based on whatever title you gave it. 

Their schtick seemed to be finding other articles on that topic and rewriting sentences from those articles. When I asked for a blog titled “Can A.I. Write A (Good) Blog?”, the result began, “It is not a magic ointment for your companies that write problems, but a useful tool for integrating professional content generation and structure.” 

This was (obviously) pretty bad, and the full article read like a word salad of sentences from other articles strung together. Reviews of other A.I. writers weren’t any better, so a year ago, it looked like A.I. writing was all hype. 

Meet the New Robots, Different from the Old Robots

This year I tried out Rytr. Its excellent interface allows you to type in a subject, keywords, an attitude (concerned, casual, humorous) and whether you want it to write a business proposal, email, blog section, blog outline, or something else.

I asked for it to use the same prompt, “Can A.I. Write A (Good) Blog?”. 

Its first response was, “No, no robot can write a blog. Blogs are written by humans, so we can't let robots do this task.” So clearly Rytr isn’t an egotist.

I had the program try a few other times. When I requested something “funny,” it imagined a future where robots could write blogs about robots, but there weren’t any actual jokes.

When I asked for something “convincing” it said: “The answer is not a simple yes or no. The truth is that A.I. can generate blog content, but it will never be able to write a good blog post.”

I couldn’t see much difference between a casual, cautionary, or humorous post, but I had to admit the writing was competent, B-average college student stuff. 

The same appears to be true of Jasper A.I., which is popular among some of the marketers I know. On Reddit there is a Jasper post that begins:

“The debate between freelance content writers and AI writers has been going on for a while now. While some people believe that AI writing will eventually take over the field, others think that human creativity and intuition will always be necessary in order to produce high-quality content.”

Once again, writing that could get you a B on your college essay. 

Is It Time to Let a Robot Do Your Blogging?

A.I. writers are certainly getting better. But before you jump on the robot bandwagon, take a look at the writing samples above and ask yourself whether that writing would engage you enough to read a full article.

Writing isn’t just about conveying information. It also involves pulling the reader in and keeping them engrossed. No one expects a college essay to be interesting, but who wants to read a blog that is nothing but a flat recitation of information?

Still, if you want a lot of cheap, competently written blog posts with keywords neatly tucked inside, A.I. writing will give you that. And just like a restaurant that benefits from the appearance of handsomely bound books on its shelves even if they’re terribly written, as long as people and search engines see that you have blog posts, you might not think it matters if anyone actually reads them.

But writing no one actually wants to read doesn’t give you all the benefits of good writing. When people read your blogs, the content on your about page, or a newsletter, you want an emotional response. Competent, boring writing doesn’t establish you as a thought leader. It doesn’t persuade anyone on the fence that they need what you’re offering. 

But I will admit that if you can’t afford to hire good writers, A.I. writing is not as harmful as it was last year. Although ideally, even if you use A.I. for a first draft you should spend some time to inject a little personality and liven up the language.

In a year, A.I. writing has gone from borderline competent to halfway decent. It’s one reason I’m glad that in the last year Pearl Consulting NYC has been shifting its focus to branding. Creating and conveying an effective, distinct brand voice is still beyond the reach of these robots. So is creating a memorable tagline or a compelling vision statement. 

For the moment, I can still outwrite a robot. But having seen how much A.I. writing has improved in a year, I suspect it’s only a matter of time until the wittiest, most engaging articles are being written by machines.

The writing is on the wall, and it’s algorithmic.

Have you used an AI writer? Drop us a line - we’d love to hear about it! Human responses only, please.