(Human) Words Matter

 What we’re doing about AI.

There’s a heckuva lot of chatter about Artificial Intelligence (AI) these days. Maybe you’ve logged in to ChatGPT to tease out an inconsequential story or prompted it to summarize an article you didn’t have time to read. Or maybe you’ve only heard rumblings of writing robots in the periphery of your news sphere—that’s okay, too.

Whatever the case may be, you’ve heard of it (even if it’s just in reading this article). But amidst all the noise, what do you actually need to know about AI? And how is it impacting our little crew at ColorWord Creative?

1. We don’t know what we don’t know.

After attending an AI Summit on writing, Communications Director Amy Huckaba came away with one common thread: Nobody knows how the next few years will unravel.

Teachers are scrambling to adapt to this newfangled tech, writers are experimenting with robotic prompts, and c-suite execs are clawing through the minutia of information to figure out if paid fingers can be replaced by cost-cutting artificial intelligence.

We’re all adapting, but nobody can predict how this will all shake out.

2. AI is a powerful tool, but it can’t replace writers (yet).

AI is a tool, full stop. It can’t think, feel, or empathize. It has never grieved or laughed, experienced loss or heartbreak, watched its daughter take her first steps or smelled the delicious musk of a wobbling puppy.

It isn’t human, and never will be.

There will always remain something uniquely human
about writing and storytelling.

—Paul Roetzer, Marketing AI Instit

ute

3. It can save time and inspire better work.

As a tool, AI can help writers (and non-writers!) accelerate their process. It can help with brainstorming or serve as a jumping-off point. AI can write an outline in 30 seconds (or less), and it can provide a dozen different descriptors for the color blue: “a primary color that is often associated with the sky and the ocean”—not bad, but not particularly inspiring.

A shovel can dig a foundation. An excavator can do it faster. But they’re nothing without an architect.

4. Brand voice matters now more than ever.

With so many folks tapping into the power of AI, safe, bland, immemorable writing will become the bane of our reading existence.

Be smart. Be witty. Be irreverent, snarky, shamelessly corny. Be something. Be human.

5. Original thoughts and ideas are gold.

You can’t be a thought leader using AI as inspiration. If anyone can prompt an article on “unique ways to stand out in your field” using the same ChatGPT prompt, then it is, by definition, not a piece by a thought leader.

Your experiences, perspectives, and ideas matter. Write them down.

So how does ColorWord Creative plan to use (and not use) AI going forward?

ColorWord will NOT:

• Give our clients articles, blogs, or other text that is generated by AI.

• Publish articles, blogs, or other text that is generated by AI on our own platforms.

• Publish AI-edited text.

• Use AI-designed images.

ColorWord MIGHT:

• Use AI to help brainstorm/suggest: headlines, social media posts, outlines, story/blog/article ideas.

• Use AI as a research tool.

Special thanks to WIRED magazine for this largely-borrowed list.

For now, we’ll continue to create marketing materials that work. We will ask questions, listen to your unique problems, and spark solutions in our very human brains.