Did AI Write That? (Hunter Field Editor’s Note)

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I noticed a change about a year and half ago in many of the press releases I’m sent on a daily basis.

My first thought was one of pleasant surprise. They were improving. The writing was more clear and the information better organized.

Then, the patterns began to emerge, and many of the releases grew more and more alike.

Everyone suddenly had a strange fondness for em dashes, semicolons and other uncommon forms of punctuation and sentence structure.

Finally, one news release let the secret slip.

“This AI-generated content may be inaccurate,” said one release with corrupted text that some poor PR specialist probably failed to proofread before sending it out to half the media members in Arkansas.

It has become even more prevalent since I realized that these announcements were starting to be written using artificial intelligence. What I can’t seem to decide is whether to be bothered by it.

Like a calculator, is AI a tool to increase efficiency? Is it dishonest to put your name to something that ChatGPT “wrote”?

I don’t think I’ve decided yet, but I’m getting better at detecting AI in writing. The em dashes and unusual punctuation are staples as are three items in a series at the end of sentences and tortured metaphors. Artificial intelligence also still seems incapable of recognizing repetition, employing the same sentence structure over and over. There’s also this aloof tone that I can’t quite describe, but I know it when I see it.

I think we’ll all get better at detecting these subtleties, and over time I’m sure AI models will adjust until it’s near impossible to detect whether it’s human writing or not.

I’m certainly not jealous of the teachers and professors navigating how to handle AI in the classroom. As one local professor asked me recently, is student assessment dead? It felt more like a statement than a question.

We’re wrestling with how to use it in journalism. So far, we’ve mostly settled on avoiding it for actual writing, but it would be foolish not to use it as a tool in reporting. AI is particularly helpful in organizing documents and analyzing data. We’ve only begun to scratch the surface, and in the next couple of years, we’ll be stunned at the ways we discover to use this quickly developing technology.

AI will, and already has started to, transform the way most of us work. Its impacts will also go well beyond our work. I’ve already used it this year to do things like create a workout schedule and lay out a lawn care plan for my yard.

But the writing thing worries me. Nothing feels more human to me than writing and story. Artificial intelligence can write a press release, an article or even a novel. But unlike our fellow man, it cannot give it soul.

Email Hunter Field, editor of Arkansas Business, at hfield@abpg.com