Anybody tried AI Tools?

Articles, Blog posts, Content, Informational, etc. If it's not directly related to sales copy then this is the place to talk about it
Post Reply
movijis715
Newbie
Posts: 2
Joined: January 16th, 2022, 8:30 am
Been thanked: 1 time

Anybody tried AI Tools?

Post by movijis715 »

Hello,

I was wondering if anybody tried AI tools for their day-to-day activities.

I have tried a few. Some of them are good but it still requires manual editing.

It can save quite a lot of time.

What tools you have tried?
User avatar
SARubin
Copywriter
Posts: 557
Joined: January 12th, 2019, 8:00 am
Location: USA
Tagline: Spinning Words Into Gold
Has thanked: 120 times
Been thanked: 108 times
Contact:

Re: Anybody tried AI Tools?

Post by SARubin »

Hello movijis715,

Welcome to the forum.

I'm sure most people have their own opinions about AI, and I'm no exception to that rule. So here's my take on it...

AI is getting better than it was just a couple years ago, and if we're only looking for generic copy to fill some pages, it's a viable option for some people to use.

But when it comes to authentic personality in our writing...

Robots don't understand emotions, context, or have personalities. And the writing I've seen coming from AI reflects that fact.


Lately I've heard a lot of rhetoric about one called Jarvis. It gets mixed reviews. I haven't tried it myself, yet, but the reviews from writers I respect are all pretty much unanimous...

...It's a tool that can save time with first drafts. But like all tools it's only as good as the person using it. And you still need to spend a lot of time editing and re-writing the copy.

Simply put, it doesn't write high quality finished copy by itself any more than a hammer can build a house all by itself. (I'd like to see AI come up with a metaphor like that one. Then I'll give it another look :ugeek: )
A good marketer knows how to think like a marketer - A great marketer learns how to think like the customer...
SARubin - Direct Response Copywriter / Conversion Flow Expert
movijis715
Newbie
Posts: 2
Joined: January 16th, 2022, 8:30 am
Been thanked: 1 time

Re: Anybody tried AI Tools?

Post by movijis715 »

I have tried some AI tools out of those Jarvis is quite good.

Yes, it requires some editing.

You can also try Jarvis free for 5 days here [affiliate link removed by moderator]

It is helpful in writer's block.
Scribla
Member
Posts: 5
Joined: January 21st, 2022, 10:55 am
Been thanked: 3 times

Re: Anybody tried AI Tools?

Post by Scribla »

I've mainly used Jarvis and looking at other alternatives also - any ideas please do share guys. Still haven't found a tool that truly delivers on its promise.

I'm currently using it for work where there's a need to scale up content output and, while skeptical to begin with, I do believe the technology can be used for simple things like bulk creation of short product descriptions, headings, titles, meta tags, etc. But for actual sales copy, I'm not convinced.

The technology is interesting, though, and it's getting better all the time. But it's also fundamentally flawed in various ways, for the exact same reason that we are. Big Tech want to sell us this crock that AI is something that thinks for itself but that's not true in the slightest. Essentially it's just a mirror for humanity in general, so GBT3 tools like Jarvis simply reflect back what we feed it. Hence its flaws; namely accuracy, originality, formality and unpredictability.

Accuracy: Since it's essentially grabbing bits and pieces of information of existing content to create a (generally coherent) mosiac of words, everything it writes needs to be carefully fact-checked in case it spews out something that's blatently false at best, or potentially libelous at worst.

This is exacerbated by the fact that, with Jarvis, the pool of content it's pulling from has not been updated since 2019 - and let's face it a LOT has happened since then.

Originality: Not only do you have to fact check it, plagiarism also rears its head quite a lot. It's stitching things together from various sources and usually just rephrasing them. And because it's all happening in some mystical ai algorithm we can never be sure of what those sources are. So in addition to them being potentially inaccurate there may be legal and/or duplicate content issues. At best you tend to get a lot of homoginised content that reads like every generic sales pitch, informercial script or blog post that's been churned out for the past decade.

Formality: This has a knock-on effect for anyone looking to create content for specific industries and/or markets, especially those outside the US. Setting it to UK English, for example, will alter the spelling and grammar accordingly, but it's not yet smart enough to know that certain phrases don't translate very well this side of the Atlantic.

Yes, you can set different TOVs on it but even when I've asked it to write in a formal tone, it continues to pump out content full of jaded CTAs, chirpy cliches and cutesy phrases - the kind of stuff that would make George Orwell vomit blood.

It's not always the most succint either. Which is anathema for us copywriters. We favour lean, impactful content that gets straight to the point, but poor ole Jarvis often likes to strap an onion to his belt and ramble on like Abraham Simpson. As for stuff like Technical Writing or if you're creating content for a heavily-regulated industry like Legal, Financial, Medical, Academic... forget about it.

If somebody can create software that does manage to clear that stumbling block I imagine there would be huge demand.

Unpredictability: All of these above issues are compounded by the fact that AI writing software is essentially creating context numerically, and assigning meaning based not on an intrinsic understanding of what these words and concepts mean, but rather on the statistical/mathematical relationship between them. So it still makes lots of obvious mistakes and often times runs off on weird tangents veer way off the original topic. You can feed it additional information for added context to stop it going off the rails but again it's unpredictable and when things go wrong it starts to either repeat itself at best, or starts pumping out absolute gibberish like zen haikus on acid.

Also, because it's a machine that draws in data from the internet, it's also culturally tone deaf, just like the internet. So when I tried to get it to create a test article on the upcoming World Cup this year, it started ranting about (the host nation) Qatar's human rights record and when asking it to create a product description for the Irish market, it happily regurgitated Guinness and leprechans and all sorts of other shamrocks and shenanigans simply because I included the word "Ireland" in the instructions.

The upside of all this was, by experimenting with the software, I was able to discover exactly why so much content that my employer had been paying through the nose for from an an agency was similarly riddled with similar cliches, sterotypes and inaccuracies, as well as chunks that seemed to have been lifted from wikipedia wholesale. Clearly they were using similar technology to create massive silos of content without any editorial processes in place. And the results were disasterous.

So the lesson is this; GBT3 is a really clever and facinating technology, but one that's still in its infancy. And like any infant it requires constant attention, training and supervision. Use it, by all means, but not as a fully-fledged content creation platform but rather as a sketch pad for ideas. (Jarvis' AIDA feature, in particular, I found quite good for this.)

See it as just another item in the toolbox, a means but not an end. Anyone looking for a push-button content generator that will solve all their content problems are missing the point. That's unless you're an affiliate guy with a black hat fetish or a lazy content factory who just wants to quickly churn out blog post fodder and listicles, if that's all you want then it's the perfect product. Never again will you have to pay a human being in some distant land 0.0000001c per word to write masterpieces like "10 Great Gift Ideas For Your Labradoodle", you can do it at the touch of a button. But good luck getting it ranked on Google.
User avatar
SARubin
Copywriter
Posts: 557
Joined: January 12th, 2019, 8:00 am
Location: USA
Tagline: Spinning Words Into Gold
Has thanked: 120 times
Been thanked: 108 times
Contact:

Re: Anybody tried AI Tools?

Post by SARubin »

I like your writing Scribla. This post was a lot of fun to read.

It's entertaining, informative, and well thought out... All at the same time.

In an internet ocean teeming with bland and/or nonsensical bullshit, I find it refreshing when someone can make an intelligent point without sounding like Ben Stein in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off".

And any who can mention George Orwell and Grampa Simpson in the same post... and make it work... is OK in my book.
A good marketer knows how to think like a marketer - A great marketer learns how to think like the customer...
SARubin - Direct Response Copywriter / Conversion Flow Expert
Scribla
Member
Posts: 5
Joined: January 21st, 2022, 10:55 am
Been thanked: 3 times

Re: Anybody tried AI Tools?

Post by Scribla »

Thanks for the kind words. And anyone who drops Ben Stein and Ferris Buller in a reply is alright in my book too. :D
User avatar
copyclem
Member
Posts: 10
Joined: November 30th, 2021, 11:27 am
Been thanked: 1 time

Re: Anybody tried AI Tools?

Post by copyclem »

I'm not sure how much this opinion is worth coming from a newb but personally, it feels like learning/playing the guitar on Guitar Hero.

The biggest advantage for me was saving time, have something whip up really quickly based on a set of requirements and voila! An article that you can run through and polish up.

But as I have mentioned, I'm fairly new to the writing world and AI writing apps ain't exactly gonna make me a better writer, no more than Guitar Hero turning me into a great guitar shredder.

So I've stopped and continued on the long hard route. :D
User avatar
Franklin
Copywriter
Posts: 221
Joined: January 27th, 2019, 12:00 am
Location: Right in front of you
Has thanked: 45 times
Been thanked: 76 times

Re: Anybody tried AI Tools?

Post by Franklin »

They're getting better by the day.

I believe in a few years we'll have some real competition from those robots.
But like all computers they're only as good as the person who programs it, and quality writing still takes quality market research.
“There are 3 kinds of people in this world. Those who can count, and those who can't”
User avatar
rickbeaver
Newbie
Posts: 2
Joined: March 20th, 2024, 6:47 am
Location: United States
Has thanked: 1 time

Re: Anybody tried AI Tools?

Post by rickbeaver »

Yes, I've experimented with various AI tools for everyday tasks. While some show promise, like MyEssayWriter.ai, I've found that manual editing is often necessary for optimal results. Nonetheless, these tools do offer significant time-saving benefits.
Share This With Friends
Post Reply
  • Similar Topics of Interest
    Replies
    Views
    Last post