“The journey isn’t just how we acquire skills, the journey is the point of all this.” - Ronny Chieng. His full Harvard Address is brilliant and worth 21 minutes of your time.
This week I was all set up for a guest post. A decent blog, I emailed the guest for a bio. Then I read the next blog on my list. Two different people, two different companies, two different countries. One tone of voice. One very similar structure.
Intro starting with a time period
Introducing the company
A heading
Data introduced - referencing “Ahrefs” at the same point
What this means...etc.,
I state very clearly on my submissions blog that I don’t accept AI generated work. Unfortunately, due to the times that we are living in, I can’t guarantee that nothing has slipped through the net. I can only trust my instincts, and if I think that something has had AI involvement, I won’t be publishing it. I might be wrong, but I’d happily be wrong and keep the quality of my blog high. There’s no value in spending my time putting together a mediocre blog, and you eventually will get bored of reading it.
Not every marketer or business owner is a writer, and that is okay. I have worked with some great businesses to heavily edit their work and turn their case studies into well-written blogs.
I might have been wrong about those two blogs. The LAST thing that I want to do after having accepted a post is turn around and retract that. This is the first time that that has happened, I really hope that it will be the only time. I don’t call out AI involvement unless I am absolutely certain that this is the case.
It seems like I was right about at least one of these blogs. And the other, although the submitter told me he didn’t use AI, registered as 100% AI on the Pangram AI detector that Substack has just integrated into the platform.
To those of you who are hearing what I am saying, the heading above is stupid or pointless. But with AI having been thrust upon us so strongly, and embraced by so many so quickly, my words are not registering with everyone. Potential bloggers have asked me if I REALLY don’t accept AI work. I have been asked how much AI involvement is acceptable (None!), and the one potential guest blogger that I queried told me that he made all the points himself (mate, giving points to an LLM doesn’t count as writing).
I had another guest blogger tell me that he was surprised that I actually read through his work and edited it – he thought I would run his piece through an AI system, even though I have clearly stated on my submissions blog that I would never do that.
I started my All About Digital Marketing blog because I have fourteen years of communications and marketing experience, and there are a plethora of people who have asked me to explain marketing to them. Some of them I have sat down and explained the basics to, but marketing is a huge topic (there is a reason why you can do a three-year marketing degree) and I am time poor. Realistically, I can’t explain everything in marketing to everyone individually. So I started a blog instead, to share real knowledge and well-written, authentic, human work. As time went on, I thought that it would be a great opportunity to open up my blog to other marketers and businesses, share their knowledge too and give them some free publicity in return. And it is a great thing, but AI does not fit into the picture here.
I had another potential guest blogger tell me that he had the legal right to use an AI generated image. No one has the legal right to use an AI generated image. No one has the right to use something that they didn’t create by something that was likely trained on stolen work. Of course, I then questioned the legitimacy of his text and pointed out the flaws in the image (I also do graphic design). He didn’t send me a reply.
If you are after some low budget or free images for your work, I wrote a blog about how to acquire those legally too.
AI is here, it’s not going anywhere soon, and at the rate that our technology is evolving it’ll develop and change. As a Marketer I need to know about it. As a fast-moving technology, we need to understand it, challenge it and use it wisely, or we’ll end up in a mess just like we did with smartphones and social media (it’s already happening). Perhaps AI can help find medical breakthroughs or make processes easier. As a content writer, for me, in this area of work it’s unneeded. My brain is Chat LMG, I have been churning out words since I was small and I have perfected my craft. I can understand the industry I am in, the instructions given to me and all those little nuances that allow me to add the human touch to everything that I write. I use real words to share real knowledge, ideas and stories. I’m not generating mediocre texts that spit out stolen work.
So please, send me your submissions, but keep it real. In the great Ronny Chieng’s words, I want solid articles from “people with substance”, not weak articles from “people with shallow knowledge”. I’d rather take the time to heavily edit a blog post with a unique edge than spend precious time uploading AI slop to a bland blog.
If you’d like to feature on the All about Digital Marketing blog, please check out the guidelines blog and get in touch. Don’t forget to subscribe.
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