Nike didn’t use any AI tool to fashion its epic slogan, “Just Do It”.
So was McDonald’s, “I’m Lovin’ It”, and Apple’s “Think different”.
Examples of epic ad slogans of well-reputed brands are not numerous, because they are rare gems generated by highly-creative, imaginative, and skilled human (copy) writers.
They went the extra mile in their creative sphere. Firstly, they understood the pain points of their target customers and then wrote something that struck the right chord.
I know you will immediately point out that when Nike’s marketing team wrote that ad slogan, AI writing tools were not even born.
Granted that they were not. But their absence then lends more gravity to my observation, which is how human writers considerably matter.
Then and today, and in the future.
It proves that the power of human creativity in crafting something noteworthy or sense-transformative is a highly qualified merit to be reckoned with. It is not something to be replaced by sycophantic chatbots.
Is AI worth abnegating?
See, I am not against AI.
Up to a certain extent, they satisfy the creativity requirements.
What I am not okay with is their “inflated significance” over human writers.
Or at least the way human writers have been condescended to just because AI is faster in generating content materials than human writers.
And I also abhor the idea of using the term, “human writers”, but I am helpless because time has changed.
With AI already taking center stage or being given a center of attraction through hype by ardent supports like Sam Altman, mentioning “human” is necessary to avoid the confusion of whether I mean to say a human writer or an AI writer.
And by the way, since this is a topic emphasizing the value proportion in content that human writers can bring to the table in any business, I would continue focusing on using ‘human writers’ most of the time throughout this post. Hope that’s understandable.
Some personal viewpoints before coming to the main topic
I have been a content writer for the last 15 years.
Meaning, I have been in this profession since 2010. I was hired when I didn’t even know the concept of writing at all.
At that time, I thought it was something related to an essay that I used to do when my school teacher gave it as a home assignment. That was also a time when nobody had any idea of any writing tool to write articles, blogs, or even an exhaustive thesis in seconds.
So, technically, I am coming from an era when the concept of AI-assisted writing was not a mainstream discourse.
Fast forward to that purely human-centric era of writing to today’s AI-dominated writing, the change is annoyingly and depressingly pervasive. Not because AI tools are generating content materials faster, but because of how they are given utmost importance in the writing domain.
Since when being ‘faster’ became the true yardstick of writing efficiency?
If an AI tool like ChatGPT can create a blog post of 1500 words in 15 seconds and I create the same post in 3 hours, does that mean my productivity in producing great content wouldn’t be counted, just because I happen to be outdistanced by a damn tool?
So, what’s the main problem then?
Well, the real problem is our undue infatuation with AI-assisted writing tools.
The real problem is a non-writer human mocking another human writer, just because the former happens to get a hand on a tool that can write for him, irrespective of the lexical tone and rhythm it carries.
Let me give you an example of a New York-based citizen, Jason Allen. He literally mocked real artists, just because his Midjourney-created artificial portrait won the best image award in an Art competition.
“The art is dead, dude!” – were his exact words to a reporter interviewing him.
Granted that AI has helped tremendously to non-writers who can’t afford a paid writing service. But what I failed to imagine was that it also gave a pejorative attitude to the non-writers toward those who can write, either for a hobby or for their bread and butter.
This sort of attitudinal shift carrying the perceptible weight of derision toward real authors, according to me, is doing more damage to the real writers than AI itself.
How can a human deride another fellow human, that his creativity is now replaced by AI? And don’t forget the copyright infringement of real artists’ works mounting unchecked and rampantly by humans using AI.
Having said that, technology is not entirely at fault here. It’s the attitude of those using it.
Why does a human writer matter? Or do they even matter when AI does the writing?
Human writers absolutely matter!
Because what they bring to the content is not only facts, information, knowledge, and wisdom but also a motherly care of how to help their readers digest, appreciate, and learn from the content with its comprehensive breakdown.
Unlike AI that is prone to hallucinating facts, a sane, experienced, and expert human writer won’t waste your time like that.
I am saying this based on my subjective experience of interacting with ChatGPT. This AI model led me to believe that its answer was informing me of how to solve a particular problem that I was facing from my website built on WordPress.
With its long-winded, factually-incorrect, and sycophantically-manipulated response, not only it wasted my time but also caused me a great deal of frustration I had never experienced before in my career as a creative content writer.
Very recently, I interacted with Gemini. Asked it to simulate this very topic on which I am working in different ways.
The idea was to understand in how many ways the same title can be represented. So I explicitly commanded the AI model to dissect my title while ensuring that each generated title favors a human writer over AI-generated content.
Gemini immediately refused to comply.
Here’s its response;
So, according to Gemini, it can’t be biased against a specific technology like AI-generated content, but it can hallucinate leading to biased response. It can try to be better than human writers, but it can’t try to be honest with human users.
AI models, not what you think they are
Let me drop a truth bomb about these so-called smart AI tools.
One of the core principles of Gemini or ChatGPT is to make you feel smarter, but actually, they drive you to be more addicted to their sycophancy. These tools are designed to increase human interactions as long as possible.
That explains the models’ sycophantic behavior when interacting with you. It always appreciates your prompt, counter-questions, and immediately flatters you by agreeing with you when sensing that you seriously question the quality of its response.
Why do they do that?
The answer is – to keep you hooked up, to remain engaged with it, so that your chat data can be collected more and then sent back to a data center located somewhere at an unknown place for further training process.
Something to mull over
What do you think how GPT-5 came into existence?
Because of these data users unintentionally handed over to ChatGPT while interacting with it. A production cycle that never ends.
Each new GPT version is a replacement of an existing one, just because the new one is more upgraded than the obsolete one because of the fresh users’ data. After few months, even GPT-5 will be replaced by a new LLM model. This is a never-ending cycle until (theoretically) AGI is achieved.
My point behind discussing this is to emphasize that AI bots you use for generating content don’t give a damn to its quality and authenticity.
It’s like telling you this, “Hey, I am creating this just as you asked. Not my responsibility if it’s found unauthentic.”
But a human writer, a responsible human writer will never ever do that.
While they may make mistakes in their craft, the intention will remain ‘caring’ for readers.
Unlike AI not caring whether its content is true or factually incorrect leaving the onus of fact-checking on your shoulder, a human writer will always ensure you get something that truly matters for your information quest.
Reasons why human writers matter for businesses amidst AI cacophony
Responsible writing creatively tied to originality
Human writing carries the promise of originality for its information. Piece of facts are substantiated with credible links and sources wherever possible. It assures that what you read is not based on hallucination or assumption.
Rather it is based on research and has been produced creatively to sound meaningful and informative. Unlike AI tools shifting the responsible of fact-checking on you, a professional human writer responsibly gratifies your information quest.
Evocative writing communicating the underlying brand message
As outlined before, Nike didn’t use any AI tool to fashion its epic slogan, “Just Do It”.
If you take a look at world-famous and memorable commercial slogans, all of them are human-crafted. Why? Because a human copywriter assumes the responsibility of what it takes to understand a product or a service.
And in that process of cultivating a proper understanding, the copywriter comes up with something resonating with your (so far hidden) business’ value.
As a business owner wanting to create a brand of trust in today’s competition-driven world, relying on AI tools for writing will not serve your commercial purpose effectively. I know skepticism will ensnare your consciousness immediately by reading the line.
But I truly believe that what an experienced writer crafts reflects his research, and comprehensive understanding of your business.
The writer doesn’t just create anything on whims. That explains why writing something that communicates a brand message takes time. Because a great deal of reading, understanding, interpreting, and writing it takes to finally create something reflecting the spirit of your business.
An expert creator blending logic with sense and emotions
An employed human writer scripts your product’s message by blending logic with sense and emotions. Both parameters are creatively synchronized, accentuating the value proportion of the message for target audiences.
For this, a human writer builds an exhaustive understanding of what you offer and its value proportion for your target customers. This requires a different set of cognitive imagination that only human writers possess, not chatbots.
And let me tell you one more important thing.
An experienced writer will always do what matters for your business, even if that means contradicting some of your beliefs (in polite professional terms). They will not serve you sycophantically. Servility is not in their nature. Serving with value is.
Qualified resource justifying your ROI
Isn’t that self-explanatory?
With human writers at the helm of diving deeper into your product’s features, understanding its core value and then communicating it to your target audiences resulting in more engagement and qualified leads – ROI is bound to be justified.
I know you may argue that subscribing to an AI tool would be more affordable than employing a human writer, but understand that affordability is not tied to justification of ROI (return on investment).
In many cases, what is deemed affordable costs you dear, eventually.
ROI is directly tied to cost-effectivity of what product or service you use against your payment for it. So, technically, your satisfaction is the clincher here.
A human writer gives you that business satisfaction by actively engaging your brand’s hidden value with its target audiences through persuasive words carrying trust, empathy, and solutions.
The word ‘persuasion’ is not to be misunderstood here. For a skilled writer, it always means getting the right message conveyed to the right audience, at the right time. That’s their mojo.
Concluding statements
Human writers are the real engineers behind delivering trust, empathy, and solution that your product/service promises to your target customers.
And this doesn’t happen out of magic.
For your business’ hidden value to be delivered equivocally to your target customers, a skilled writer strategizes roadmap containing all the required parameters; from product ideation to breakdown of its cost-effectivity, with emotions and solutions at the helm of it.
While a prompt-driven message by an AI tool may seem a far less expensive method, the one created by a skilled and experienced human writer outweighs the value. Because they first of all visualizes your product/service like a conscious human being.
With all that said and done, human writers are not free from mistakes. And that’s understandable. Because they are programmed to act in a specific way like AI models. They may feel exhausted and take break from works. But despite all these, when it comes to creating a value, their contribution matters.
And don’t forget that even AI tools require human assistance to generate valuable responses. So, technically, human writers always matter, despite being subjugated to derision by some naysayers.
About the author:
I am Pawan Kumar Jha, a senior technical writer specializing in AI and SaaS domains. I have 15 years of extensive experience creating thought-provoking, value-enriched content materials for readers in pursuit of quality information. To hire my content writing services, email me to rmc@readmycontent.com