When AI Goes Awry
Much has been touted about the wonders of AI writing tools, and while the copy generated by them is most assuredly artificial, "intelligence" is not the word that immediately comes to mind when reading machine manufactured content.
AI is unquestionably extraordinary for a variety of applications. At present, however, it does not remotely mimic well-composed, long-form writing. Simply, real writers cannot be replaced by the current cohort of AI products that promise to produce prose worthy of in-depth reporting or effective marketing campaigns.
The tools I tested guaranteed remarkable outcomes. Instead, what they rendered were a series of highly flawed (and, at times, unintentionally funny) results.
My experiment was predicated on a very straightforward input: "The L.A. Rams beat the Cincinnati Bengals in the Super Bowl on February 13, 2022." The Who, What, and When were extremely standard, yet the outputs were beyond subpar.
Here are four examples of AI-generated content, based on the factual statement above.
"The Los Angeles Rams are celebrating their first Super Bowl title with a victory in the Super Bowl against the Cincinnati Bengals. In the epic game that turned out to be a nail biter, the Rams were defeated by a touchdown... "
Wait, what?! The tool first noted the Rams were “celebrating… a victory in the Super Bowl,” and then one sentence later asserted, “the Rams were defeated.” Yikes!
"The L.A. Rams were favored to win the Super Bowl. The Cincinnati Bengals took a risk and drafted running back Rex Burkhead in the 2013 NFL Draft. The Rams went on to win the game with quarterback Jared Goff, Todd Gurley, Sammy Watkins, Jared Cook and Alec Ogletree."
In addition to the complete non sequitur about Rex Burkhead being drafted by the Bengals in 2013, he didn’t play in Sunday’s game since he’s on the Houston Texans. And not one single Rams player mentioned was on this year’s Super Bowl-winning team. Whoops.
"What if your favorite team lost the Super Bowl? The Rams would be one of the biggest losers… Although they ultimately lost to the Patriots, it was a close game and it could have gone either way."
Of course, the Rams won, the Bengals lost, and "either way" the Patriots were not in Super Bowl LVI.
"The L.A. Rams and Cincinnati Bengals have met in the Super Bowl on February 13, 2022.... Why would these two teams be playing each other in the biggest sporting event of the year? The answer is simple: history… But I’m not just talking about football; this rivalry stems from a long history of animosity between these two cities."
Besides fumbling tenses, the content is meaningless and the answer of "history" for why they played each other is absurd. Also, who knew Cincinnati and Los Angeles hate each other?
If you want lighthearted comic relief, play around with some AI writing tools. If you want high-quality and authoritative content, please support real-life writers and journalists.