Artificial intelligence (AI) has made enormous strides in recent years, and one of its most useful and mind-blowing applications is the ability to generate complex text autonomously. However, the use of AI to generate text presents a number of issues and challenges that undoubtedly need to be addressed, including content quality, ethics, misinformation and the impact on the world of work.
Content quality
One of the immediately evident problems of generating text with AI is the great variability in the quality of the contents. While AI models can produce coherent, well-written text, there are situations where the content generated is superficial and lacks depth. For example, the text of an AI–generated article might contain accurate information but lack the critical analysis or original insights that a human author would provide. Furthermore, AI can have difficulty dealing with complex topics that require a deep and detailed understanding of the context.
Ethics
Ethics, when talking about AI, is not an issue that we should underestimate. In fact, the automatic and rapid generation of text and articles with AI can undoubtedly lead to transparency and attribution problems. Readers, for example, are not always aware that they are reading an article written by AI, thus raising questions relating to authenticity and trust. Furthermore, AI, if transparency is lacking, can create manipulative and propagandistic content that lacks clear attribution.
Disinformation and Bias
AI is programmed to process large quantities of data and learn from them, but this, in addition to the broad and potentially infinite knowledge, can lead to the propagation of pre-existing misinformation and bias. AI algorithms, in fact, could reflect the prejudices present in the training data in the texts thet it creates, producing content that perpetuates stereotypes, misinformation and systematic errors. For example, the AI could write an article that unintentionally includes ethnic or gender bias, depending on the data we train it on. Furthermore, AI can draw its information from unverified and misleading sources.
Impact on Work
Automation in generating text via AI can have a major impact on the job market, especially for journalists, writers and content creators. AI can certainly increase productivity and reduce costs, but it can also lead to a reduction in labor demand for professionals. Newsrooms, for example, could decide to use AI to write articles, basic news or reports, thereby reducing the number of journalists they need to employ. This would have negative repercussions on employment but also on the quality of content, since AI can hardly replace the critical and analytical skills of human beings.
Conclusions
Generating text with AI is a significant and useful innovation, which however brings with it a series of challenges that we must resolve. So, as we continue to develop, improve and use this technology, we carefully consider potential issues to ensure responsible and informed use of AI in the creation of texts and articles.