AI and Freelancing: The Good & Bad

I was on YouTube the other day and I saw a series of videos about the glories of AI and how this “new” technology is going to revolutionize work and the way we live. And of course, the comments were doomsday-style warnings about how it’s going to kill freelancing.

Here’s my thought about AI:

AI is not the enemy nor is it the panacea. In fact, it’s not even new.

Here are examples of AI in your life right now and before all the kafuffle about how it’s about to change the world:

• Facial recognition
• Google Maps (hello, Street View anyone?)
• Otter.ai and other auto-transcription services
• Alexa, Siri, Google assistants
• Music services compiling playlists, streaming services suggesting similar shows….
• Any freaking search engine

Search engines have, for quite some time, been returning better results based on your browsing. They’re even getting really smart at predictive text searches. Hell, even MS Word uses predictive text. So yes, AI is not new.

All the fuss and bother about AI, all the excitement, great. But let’s not assume it’s new. Back in 1950 they were able to program a robotic mouse that could get through a maze and remember its path.

But you know marketers. If it’s not new and improved, it’s not going to sell. AI has evolved, not just showed up.

What does this mean for you, freelancer?

AI can be good. Sure, it can be bad, but in reality, the “bad” part of AI is when a cheap-assed client dumps you in favor of plagiarized, lifted, respun content from an app. That part you shouldn’t care about, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

Here’s how AI can benefit you (and sometimes in ways that already existed before marketers got hold of it):

• Writing/grammar suggestions
• Faster, more detailed research results (though even these results can be a bit mundane until AI “learns” your preferences)
• Suggestions for topics, titles, first lines, better ways to phrase
• Outline creation
• Locating better SEO keywords
• Generating content ideas

For me, AI has already helped me to:

• Transcribe recorded interviews (Otter.ai)
• Resolve a dinner debate (“Hey, Google …”)
• Autocorrect as I type (Word)
• Search suggestions as I type (Bing, Google, any search engine)
• Suggest other topics for searches
• Find research statistics faster (Bing Chat)

There are more uses for AI, but it’s something that’s already in your life in some form (“Hey, Alexa, turn on Spotify…”).

The downside of AI:

• It brings out the “cheap” in people (maybe that’s a good thing: weeds out bad clients)
• Some companies will look at it as a solution to a worker shortage
• Plagiarism and copyright infringement will increase
• It cannot understand when phrasing could damage a reputation or harm a brand
• It’s not a human, so it won’t care if its output isn’t particularly fresh or new

So those who are worried that their clients are going to disappear because of AI, know this: That’s not a client worth keeping. Besides, AI is only as good as the input. Garbage in, garbage out comes to mind.

[bctt tweet=”Clients who replace #freelancewriting pros with AI are not clients worth keeping.” username=”LoriWidmer”]

Why? Because they don’t value your skills. The relationship is too one-sided for you to ever gain any ground with them. That’s not worth spinning your wheels over, in my opinion.

Writers, to win the war with AI, use it as a tool and resource, not as a vital tool and resource. It should augment your writing processes, not replace them.

If your concern is that you will lose clients, that’s a sign that the clients you’re attracting are not those who value your skills. Time to rethink your marketing strategy and market higher up the food chain.

Quality clients won’t waste time replacing you with AI. They value what you deliver.

Writers, what AI-based apps do you already use? Have you added any new ones to that list?
What is your largest concern about AI and its impact?