AI Writing Tools - Fad or Fabulous?
I used 5 different AI writing tools to write this article, and the results were... interesting.
Short answer: AI writing tools are currently trending, they won’t change the world, but they will become another tool in a writers toolkit like spell check, Wikipedia, and note cards.
The biggest issue is AI Writing tools can’t yet create insight. They can only regurgitate the information they were trained on.
BUT you should be checking out and trying these tools. The top tools to check out right now are:
Want the longer version, a full list of AI writing tools and what is ‘good writing’? Let’s dive in…
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Writing is powerful
Let us pause and acknowledge that writing is amazing.
We can make marks on a page or display characters on a screen, that other humans can interpret, and by doing so we transmit ideas and stories from our brain to theirs.
You can write something, that nearly the entire world can read. …
If writing is powerful, good writing is even more powerful. Which leads to the question…
What is good writing?
Good writing does its job.
If the goal is to entertain, good writing entertains. If the goal is to persuade, good writing persuades. If the goal is remember to buy milk, it reminds you to buy milk. Good writing does its job.
Going one step further, there are aspects of writing that help it to be good.
These elements are:
Accuracy
Organization
Clarity
Length
Voice
Good writing is correct or accurate.
If the goal is a piece of writing is to convey information, that information should be correct and accurate.
Good writing is organized.
Good writing makes sense. It doesn’t present concepts the reader hasn’t seen yet, it doesn’t jump from unconnected ideas and it doesn’t confuse. Good writing presents the ideas and words in a way that makes sense to the reader. A reader shouldn’t have to re-read a piece of writing to understand it.
Good writing is the right length.
If the goal of the writing is to entertain, it should be long enough to be entertaining, but not so long that it becomes tedious. If the goal of the writing is to persuade, it should be
Good writing is clear.
A reader shouldn’t be confused after reading good writing. They should know what job the writing is attempting to do, and if it did it or not.
Good writing is brief and to the point.
Mark Twain is said to have once said, “I didn't have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote you a long one.” Good writing is only as long as it needs to be. Let the read get on with his or her life! (This is one of the reasons I detest word count requirements in school.)
Good writing has a voice
A table of facts doesn’t have a voice. Statistics guru Hans Rosling has a voice.
Quick recap of what is good writing, good writing does its job, and is accurate, organized, clear, short, and has a voice.
Using that as the standard of good writing…
How good is the writing of AI tools?
The honest answer is that AI writing tool output totally varies.
Sometime the paragraphs and articles produced are reasonable and correct but wander.
Sometimes what is produced includes flat out wrong information.
A lot of time AI writing sounds like someone is getting paid per word (Which is funny because you as the customer are actually paying per word)
One thing that stuck out to me, is AI writing has no soul. There are certain writers online that you can see a sample of their writing and know it is them, without reading the author byline. Others you can read and get a sense of who the author is, or at least how they were feeling. AI writing lacks this currently.
Another quotes came to my mind while researching and experimenting on this topic.
“Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?” - TS Eliot
AI writing tools can pull information. They can sometimes organize that information into cohesive knowledge.
But I find not wisdom being produced by AI writing tools (yet 🙂).
There is not yet a tool that will take someone from ok writer to great writer overnight, or allow them to produce hundreds of useful articles in record time.
Other applications of AI are further ahead in this tool aided jump. A Tesla car can drive very safety, perhaps more safely than a human on a freeway and in other controlled conditions. An AI writing tool can write faster than a human, but I don’t see it writing better than humans.
A counter point to my experience would be Ali Abdul. He experimented and found the AI writer to be super useful and it basically wrote him a ‘great thread’ about productivity advice.
I say ‘great thread’ because it got him a lot of views, but what quality were the followers? Also he already has a massive audience so was it the AI, or the fact that he wrote a thread about advice that people like?
In the end, AI writing tools are tools. Just like a hammer can be useful or not depending on how you use it, the same holds true for AI writing tools.
Does a spell checker make someone a great writing? No, but it can help a lot. Does an AI writing tool make someone a great writer? No but it can help.
AI Tools are going to improve a lot
While I didn’t find the current state of AI writing tools amazing, they will only get better. They could become a ubiquitous part of the writing process. Imagine in 10 years, a high schooler is doing a research paper. (Will they even assign research papers?) They find a topic, do some broad research, and then start ‘banging out’ a first draft with the help of an AI writing tool. Then, ideally they will go in and revise, flesh things out, and make it their own, adding actual insight, or at least a strong voice.
I 100% think you should start trying these tools out to see what is possible. The field is advancing fast. Subscribe to get a weekly update breaking down what is happening with AI tools and how you can use them.
AI Writing Tools to Try
There are a LOT of AI writing tools. I made a spreadsheet anyone can edit of all the tools here.
I made an open spreadsheet where you can look and add your favorites. So far there are 33 and counting.
You can break AI writing tools down into 3 types.
Assistants
General Writing Tools
Industry Specific Tools
Assistants
Grammarly - helps with Grammar
Hemingway - helps you write in a clear, concise style
General Writing Tools
Lex - Google Docs like with suggestions every time you type (plus plus plus)
JasperAI - create blog posts (requires credit card for trial which is annoying)
Writesonic - AI assistant
Industry Specific Tools
Anyword - for writing and testing website copy
Regie.ai - for sales campaigns
CopyAI - for generating marketing copy and blog posts.
Check them out, kick the tires, and see if you have a different take on AI writing tools. You can just reply to this email, I am curious to hear your thoughts.
Have you tried out languagetool? It has a AI-based style and grammar checker for multiple languages.