You can’t have failed to have noticed the buzz surrounding the recent launch of ChatGPT. Initial excitement may have waned a little but with version 4 recently made available to paying subscribers, it is certainly making its mark. Its release took the world by storm as us mere humans watched in awe as the AI spat out written content based on carefully constructed prompts.

First thoughts for those who rely on creative jobs in order to earn a living may well have been ones of dread and fear, afterall, if AI can write content or produce images in a fraction of the time it takes a human, is there any need for the human to have this job at all?

It’s a complex question and the answer will no doubt change as time goes on and AI becomes even more intelligent. But, for now at least, although AI is absolutely a tool that can aid the creative processes of many jobs it is a tool that still requires the human touch.

Using AI For Content Creation
Struggling for ideas for content creation? It can be hard to be able to keep up with the constant need to post content and AI is a great tool to help when you’ve got writer's block. Just one prompt can yield multiple ideas for content, saving you valuable time and allowing you to get on with the writing/creating part.

With design and art, AI can create ideas you might not have thought of. Instead of seeing AI as a way of producing the finished piece, it could become more a part of the ideas process, speeding up the initial ‘thinking’ part before you execute the final design.
AI is a great tool that is advancing at great speed. But we need to be sure what we are posting or creating is safe and legal.

Plagiarism
One obvious yet often ignored problem with using AI for content creation is the risk of plagiarism. If you ask a chat bot to write you a blog it will scrape content from multiple sources and will not provide citation. If you choose to write content in this way you run the risk of plagiarising published work.

Misinformation
Because AI doesn't provide evidence or citations you have no way of knowing if what it has written is actually true. We are all painfully aware of the dangers of misinformation so to avoid posting false information it is very important to check anything written using AI.

Content creation is a huge part of a brand’s identity. In order to build a loyal customer base, brands rely on having a unique voice and message that conveys their brand ethos. If this voice isn’t consistent or the messages don’t match the brand values then customers will lose trust.

In order for AI to produce unique content it needs to be told how to do it. No matter how good AI is it still needs to be trained to be able to write in the unique voice of an individual business. For small businesses in particular, that unique voice and message is what will set you apart from your competitors.
When creating content and designs for your business you need to ensure you are delivering:

• Personal touch
• Unique voice/message
• Stand out from competitors/big brands
  
  

This will help protect your brand and ensure your customers continue to put their trust in you and your business.

AI for Design
There has been a lot of backlash from artists and creators surrounding the training of the technology, as it scrapes images from the internet and mashes them together to answer the prompts. Artists rightly protest their work being used without consent or credit.

As well as potentially infringing copyrighted work there is also no way to copyright any work produced by AI- so even if it produces something you want to use as a logo for example, there would be nothing to stop anyone else using the same image for their logo.

Adobe’s hotly anticipated release of Firefly may answer some of those concerns as they have trained their technology on Adobe stock images, openly licensed content and public domain content where copyright has expired. In a bid to help creators produce great designs regardless of their skill levels, Adobe’s Firefly could be a tool that allows users to improve their working practices. It has to be noted that it is not currently possible to opt-out of data set training for content submitted to Stock, although Adobe do say they are looking at ways to make this a possibility in the future.

Personally, I’m a little worried that AI will make it harder to tell what is fact and what is misinformation eg. when doing web searches or reading ‘news’ on social media platforms.

AI is constantly evolving and is definitely here to stay, but for now, is it best used as a tool to help optimise our workflow to avoid running the risk of producing soulless and generic creative work.   And, if content is wholly written by AI do you think it should be credited as such so that readers can verify its accuracy?

Written by Louise Lockhart at Creative Remedy