Bloggers have new artificial intelligence options to help them manage their sites. But if you use AI Content, should a blogger say so?
I recently saw an article — actually, a sales pitch — about a plugin that would allow a blogger to more easily incorporate AI Content. That’s content generated by artificial intelligence-based options like ChatGPT.
I’m not linking to it because the deal being offered has since expired.
The point here is that a blogger can easily allow a program like ChatGPT or others to help them create content. That’s just for starters, though. A blogger could, theoretically, ask one of those bots to write a full post. He could then copy and paste that content and publish it as is.
Assuming there were no glaring errors, the reader might not immediately know the difference.
I recently asked ChatGPT to write a blog post for me. I was curious to see what it could actually do. But the article it wrote consisted of 10 items in a list on grammar. The first item on the list contained a major error.
Oops.
But what if there hadn’t been a glaring error that trashed the post almost from the very start? Would I have published it as is?
I wouldn’t have, no. But some bloggers might have.
The AI content question
The question isn’t whether a blogger should use AI content in their blog. I suspect many already are. Once the option rolled out, some bloggers who feel pressure to always generate content may have jumped at the chance for an assist.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that per se.
I can only hope, however, that they’re carefully reading and copyediting that content before they publish. If they’re too busy to write their own content, maybe they at least have enough time to properly vet what a machine produces for them.
For me, the real question is this: Should bloggers disclose AI content when they use it?
I’m not sure why anyone should need to ask that question. I keep going back to the one word I always run across when I read articles about successful blogging. That word just so happens to be authentic. Bloggers are called upon to be their genuine selves — to the greatest extent that they can. From authenticity, they can best build an audience and connect with their readers, the blogging gurus tell us.
If you accept that bloggers should be authentic, you can’t not believe that disclosing AI content isn’t the right thing to do. If you publish content that you didn’t write as if you did, you’re being dishonest with you’re audience. In fact, you’re lying to your audience. It would be the same as plagiarizing the content. The only exception would be that you didn’t steal from a fellow writer: you just let a machine write it for you. But you’re the one placing your name on it.
All of the posts on this site have my name at the top right below the headline and then at the bottom with an author bio. If some AI platform wrote the piece, I’d want that platform listed there. On one hand, that’d be for honesty’s sake. For another, if there were some major error, I wouldn’t want to take the blame for it. (Even though it would be my fault for not catching it.)
I don’t see any reasonable alternative to disclosing any AI content that you use.
