AI technology is rapidly developing and widely applied in various fields, greatly impacting our lives. How to view the development of AI and implement scientific management is an important issue worth exploring. This article starts with the development history of AI technology and analyzes the opportunities and challenges that AI may bring to future society, and puts forward relevant suggestions.
Table of Contents:
– AI in the Age of Text Workers
– Will AI Take Away Jobs?
– The Dual Empowerment of AI
– Collaborative Development
If you are also concerned about how AI will affect your work, then the author’s world may give you a glimpse into the future. Writer Benjamin Miller (pseudonym) had a successful start in early 2023. He led a team of over 60 writers and editors to write blogs and articles for a technology company to promote various data products, from real estate to used cars.
Miller said, “It’s a very attractive job. I have the opportunity to unleash my creativity and collaborate with experts in various fields.” But one day, Miller’s manager told him about a new project: “They want to use AI to reduce costs.”
A month later, the company introduced an automated system. Miller’s manager would enter article titles into an online form, and an AI model would generate an outline based on the titles. Miller would then receive a notification on his computer.
The articles that used to be conceived by the team now revolved around the outlines generated by AI, and Miller only needed to make final revisions before publication. However, just a few months after Miller adapted to this new process, he received a message about “advanced automation.”
In the future, ChatGPT would be responsible for writing these articles, and most members of his team were laid off. Only a few people remained to edit the subpar texts written by ChatGPT, making them sound more like human-written content.
By 2024, the company had laid off the rest of Miller’s team members, leaving him alone.
Miller said, “Suddenly, I took on the workload of everyone. Every day, I have to open the AI-written copies, correct the robotic formulaic errors, and complete the work that used to require dozens of people.”
Miller’s experience reflects a broader transformation.
In many industries, AI is taking over jobs that were once exclusive to humans. The cost of AI is often lower than that of humans, but early adopters quickly realized that AI cannot always achieve the same level of quality.
Now, employees like Miller are being asked to collaborate with AI, which “takes away their jobs,” to give algorithms a touch of humanity, making AI appear more human-like.
If the efficiency of AI significantly improves, this may be a temporary solution. If not, Miller’s story could be a preview of what could happen in other industries.
Will AI take away your job? It’s hard to say. We are at an unsettling crossroads, with some experts warning that superintelligent robots will soon replace most human jobs, while others believe that this technology may never reach that point.
More perspectives suggest that we are heading towards a future where AI collaborates with humans rather than competes with them.
However, in smaller scopes, some workers are already facing distressing consequences. If there is one thing that generative AI-driven large language models can do, it is stringing words and paragraphs together, which has pushed some writers to the forefront of the crisis.
Concerns about jobs being taken away by AI-driven writing tools were one of the main reasons for the writers’ strike in the United States last year.
With the arrival of AI tools that can generate photos, music, and videos from scratch, other creative industries also face similar future concerns. Copywriters who write marketing materials and other content for businesses have already felt this impact.
In certain corners of the copywriting industry, AI may be a blessing—it can be a useful tool that speeds up work progress and enhances creativity. However, some copywriters, especially those in the early stages of their careers, find it more difficult to find work due to AI.
But some people have also noticed the emergence of a new low-wage job: correcting poor writing by AI robots.
Catrina Cowart, a copywriter from Lexington, Kentucky, has worked as an AI text editor.
Cowart said, “We add ‘human touch,’ but that often requires in-depth developmental editing of an article. Fancy words like ‘thus’ and ‘however’ are always deleted because they are not suitable for casual writing.”
“Furthermore, the entire content must be fact-checked because AI just fabricates things, which takes a long time.”
Cowart added, “The humanization of AI often takes more time than starting from scratch to write an article, but the compensation is lower.”
“On job platforms, the highest pay per word is usually 10 cents, but that’s for writing and drafting. Revising AI-generated content is considered editing work, so you usually only get 1 to 5 cents per word. It’s a tedious, laborious job that hardly pays off.”
Similar examples exist in other industries, where low-paid humans silently support the operation of machines, from assisting automated ordering systems to annotating images for training AI vision systems.
However, for text workers, whether the advent of AI is a good or bad thing depends on how people approach it and their professional development.
Some writers say that using these tools in the creative process can even enhance their work.
For example, the American Writers and Artists Institute (AWAI), an organization that provides training and resources for freelance writers, offers various AI courses to its members.
Rebecca Matter, the president of AWAI, said:
Matter also said that, for most writers she knows, the transition to the world of AI has been smooth. In fact, AI has become an integral part of the copywriting process, and many writers now add their own “AI policies” to their professional websites to explain how they use this technology.
Rebecca Dugas, a copywriter with nine years of experience, said that AI is a “godsend” that allows her to complete the same high-quality work in a very short amount of time.
“As long as the client is willing, I will use AI. Whether it’s brainstorming, market research, or rewriting paragraphs when I have a headache, AI is an invaluable collaborative partner for me.”
With the development of AI, Dugas expects that some companies will turn to ChatGPT and other tools to meet their writing needs instead of hiring humans. However, Dugas also added, “But I think we should realize that if users don’t understand copywriting, they can’t judge the effectiveness of AI-generated content.”
A large amount of copywriting work comes from webmasters who want to increase website traffic through Google. However, Google made a series of major announcements last year, stating that it would remove “low-quality” content from search results. This raised concerns that the tech giant might penalize websites that host AI-generated content.
However, Google insists that AI-written content is not a problem if the quality is high, but these assurances have not alleviated people’s concerns.
Therefore, in some areas of copywriting, it has become common practice to use AI detection software to check the text. In the past year, a large number of writers even reported losing their jobs due to misreporting by AI detection.
According to Cowart, many freelance platforms that have AI detection software also hire people to edit content produced by chatbots. This means that in certain corners of copywriting, almost all work revolves around avoiding AI traces.
“They sell AI content and pay you to correct it, while at the same time, they send you emails telling you how to write like a human so that you won’t trigger their AI detectors. It’s insulting.”
“Worse still, these detectors are regularly updated to keep up with the latest changes from AI chatbot companies, which means the rules for marking content as AI are constantly changing.”
Miller’s “AI correction” job ended abruptly on April 5, 2024, when a major earthquake hit New York, and he was laid off that day. Fortunately, not long after, Miller found a new, somewhat ironic job.
He found a job at a tech company called “Undetectable AI,” which develops software that makes AI writing harder to identify. In other words, Miller is now doing the work he was forced to do after his job was taken away by AI, for a company that uses AI.
Bars Juhasz, the Chief Technology Officer of Undetectable AI, said that tools like the one his company produces will undoubtedly have a negative impact on the labor market, but he remains optimistic about the future of work.
Juhasz added, “I think we will see many job positions being replaced, and freelancers will be hit the hardest. I sympathize with them.”
“However, those who get paid to make AI more human are excellent opportunists. Of course, it’s not a good job, but at a time when we are redefining productivity, they have effectively found a new position. Those who can learn to deal with technology will thrive.”
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