Content in the age of infinite production

We live in a new era of content. Another new era of content. The era to end all eras of content. Maybe.?

A familiar tension drives it. Quality content is valued, but it’s expensive to produce. Just ask Netflix or CNN+ last week. Seems like it’s too pricey for even the deepest pockets today.

But original narratives, accessible education, real helpful, real enlightening, real accurate content still hold value. It’s all still rewarded by engagement and eyeballs. Even if it might break the bank to produce.

And quantity is king. Now more than ever. Ask Google: the more often you add content to your site, the higher ranking you’ll earn on Google searches. That must be why millions of blog posts go online every day. (Is it 4 million? 4.4 million? 7 million? 7.5 million? Agencies differ and bloggers themselves, of course, can’t agree.)

How do you keep up? Should you keep up? Because the pace is only going to get more intense.?

There’s already the promise of “infinite content” produced by smart algorithms, AI-enabled services that produce “limitless” amounts of readable content of verifiable quality, faster and more reliably than human staff writers or legions of freelancers.?

Over and over, infinite content on any subject known to and shared by humans today. AI-enabled writing can do what an editorial staff can do, only faster, cheaper and with the legitimately better accuracy.?

Critics like point plagiarism problems and the AI services argue, “Not true. Fake news.” But Google adapts quickly. And my team doesn’t think those claims hold water. We looked into those services and found they underperformed. On the promise of AI content, there are still a few wrinkles to iron out.

But the future is knocking. A recent New York Times article looks at the state of “large language models” (or “L.L.M.”) used in a project called GPT-3. It’s the kind of A.I. that’s advancing language production:

GPT-3 has been trained to write Hollywood scripts and compose nonfiction in the style of Gay Talese’s New Journalism classic ‘‘Frank Sinatra Has a Cold.’’ You can employ GPT-3 as a simulated dungeon master, conducting elaborate text-based adventures through worlds that are invented on the fly by the neural net. Others have fed the software prompts that generate patently offensive or delusional responses, showcasing the limitations of the model and its potential for harm if adopted widely in its current state.

…But if the GPT-3 true believers are correct, in the near future you’ll just ask an L.L.M. the question and get the answer fed back to you, cogently and accurately. Customer service could be utterly transformed: Any company with a product that currently requires a human tech-support team might be able to train an L.L.M. to replace them.

The machines are improving. AI is getting better, and at this point, plagiarism feels like a freshman-year problem, one that L.L.M. will quickly push through.?

Where does that leave customer service content – or marketing content or any product education or training? I’m talking about content that both displays your organization’s expertise and actually serves consumers in need. What is the value of producing knowledge and guidance from your organization if A.I. can produce it on the fly?

“Writing is thinking,” I was taught as a schoolboy. Organizing my thoughts with word choices and rhetorical structures hones my reasoning and clarifies my arguments, so others can be persuaded, moved or entertained. “A very human endeavor.” I was taught that too.

But what we talk about when we talk about AI-enabled writing is also a supreme achievement, a long-sought apex of AI thinking. It’s also everything we’ve been warned against, from Stephen Hawking to Elon Musk to Tom Cruise to HAL himself.

For producers of any mission-driven content, how do we face down the machines??

In the short term, there are still a few things humans do better. Like creating a voice. A real stand-out voice that brings ideas alive.?

There’s also the advantage of distinctive opinions. Uncommon perceptions. Brilliant attitudes. AI can’t generate that yet, and yes, content in business environments can actually deliver that.

And then there’s value in the effort itself. Producing edifying content represents something earnest, your genuine commitment. “We’re here for you,” it says, just by putting it out there. We want to earn your trust, so we’re showing you our work, sharing what we value. That might be hard to justify in a budget meeting, but there it is nonetheless.

Maybe L.L.M. will perfectly reproduce our most genuine intentions – as well as our savviest content strategies. Maybe it is the era to end all eras. Or maybe not. It’s pretty human to doubt. And to innovate.?

- Jon Roemer, Head of Learning, Bright Money

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