With the surge in AI-generated content over the past year, discerning whether a human or AI-authored it has become increasingly challenging without explicit labeling. So, what’s the rationale behind restricting writers from using AI?
This question holds significance, particularly considering that AI-generated content often matches or surpasses human-written material in quality. Do potential risks exist regarding Google penalties? Is this AI-generated content beneficial to its audience? And what ethical considerations come into play?
These are the questions we will talk about in this article.
Addressing Ethics Issues Arising with Generative AI
You’re no doubt familiar with what generative AI is and the many ways it can be applied-in particular for digital marketing. Many people have taken a stab at figuring out how to apply it in their SEO and PPC work. Where generative AI undoubtedly makes content creation easier and more powerful, there’s an ethical conversation to be had about the origin and truth of that content. Let’s just say these concerns aren’t exactly frivolous and do deserve some serious consideration.
Authenticity and Disinformation
Generative AI produces strikingly realistic and believable content, hence raising a number of concerns over spreading misinformation. For instance, deepfakes contain synthetically created media, where the likeness of persons is inserted onto existing images or videos. They may create high risks associated with spreading false narratives or impersonations that could amount to serious social and political consequences.
Addressing Bias and Equity Concerns
AI systems can detect and amplify biases ingrained within their training datasets. This amplification can lead to unjust or discriminatory outcomes, particularly in critical areas such as recruitment, law enforcement, and credit assessment.
Bias, commonly recognized as an error in decision-making resulting in unjust consequences, is a prevalent issue. In the world of AI, bias manifests when the content generated reflects discriminatory training data.
For instance, in tasks like generating images of COOs, AI models such as Midjourney, OpenAI’s DALL-E, and Stable Diffusion predominantly produce images of men, reflecting gender bias. This bias mirrors the real-world underrepresentation of women in COO roles.
Consequently, it’s important to subject AI-generated content to rigorous fact-checking procedures to mitigate potential biases.
Intellectual Property Rights in the Digital World
The New York Times filed its lawsuit against Microsoft last December for using copyrighted material on AI applications. That means millions of articles were used to train chatbots that would now directly compete with the NYT content.
Interestingly, the appropriation of copyrighted material from search engines is generally tolerated by individuals and businesses. This leniency stems from the clear benefits it offers to all parties involved: Google directs billions of users to websites worldwide.
These visitors subsequently translate into revenue, laying the groundwork for the SEO industry as we know it today. But where do ethical considerations come into play?
- Fair Use vs. Exploitation: Given that search engines dominate most online interactions, Google-owned platforms rank as the most frequented multi-platform web property in the U.S.
- Clarity and Acknowledgment: Search engines like Google typically provide direct links to source websites, thereby attributing content to its creators.
Ethical issues arise when only one party stands to benefit from AI-generated content. Thus, content attribution must follow a win-win approach, ensuring due credit is given to the original creators.
Potential SEO Penalties for Using AI-Generated Content
The most frequently asked question regarding AI-generated content is the potential penalty one will attract from the search engines. The answer is simply yes, though not always. This all depends on a number of factors that include relevance and usage of the content for both the search engine and the reader.
Here are some of the possible reasons why Google would flag a website with AI-generated content:
Risk of Duplication and Plagiarism with Generative AI: The generated content by generative AI, while unaware to the generator, may closely resemble currently available material on the internet, raising potential problems of duplication or plagiarism.
Understanding the Concept of Qualified Clicks in SEO for AI Search
Search engines impose penalties on websites featuring non-original content or on content perceived as manipulative of search rankings through the duplication of already existing material.
Here is what Google has to say about plagiarised content:
“Scraped content, even from high-quality sources, without additional useful services or content provided by your site may not provide added value to users. It also may constitute copyright infringement. A site may also be demoted if a significant number of valid legal removal requests have been received.”
Google can and always will be able to, at any moment it feels that you have violated its policies, impose penalties in the form of manual actions.
Lack of E-A-T: Search engines consider expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness of content, especially in regard to important websites. Some websites do give valuable information on health, finance, or even legal advice. Several instances have been observed where websites experienced traffic declines due to insufficient evidence of author expertise.
For instance, in a recent viral case, a website witnessed a drastic drop from 1 million organic visitors to zero within three months. Though the website didn’t confirm the cause, speculation suggests inaccuracies within over 1,000 AI-generated articles. These articles contained widespread erroneous Excel formulas, ultimately proving unhelpful to readers.
The Use of AI-Generated Content for Readers
One of the most prevalent queries surrounding AI-generated content revolves around its effectiveness for readers. Indeed, it can be beneficial. However, the source of content creation—whether AI or human—is arguably immaterial. What truly counts is the content’s quality: its clarity, authority, and above all, accuracy. As long as readers find it valuable, its origin becomes secondary.
Several companies have successfully used AI for content creation, yielding favorable SEO outcomes. Google has iterated multiple times that content created solely for search engine optimization risks penalties.
The Revolutionary Impact of Generative AI on the Future of Marketing
Using AI for Content Creation
Content created through AI can indeed yield positive outcomes for your website, provided it meets the specified criteria. However, this doesn’t imply that you can simply churn out 1,000 articles using AI alone. AI tools, while powerful, still require human oversight and review. The human touch remains important for the success of your SEO endeavors.
This is to ensure factual accuracy, proper attribution of sources, and adherence to E-A-T criteria to establish a robust content strategy resilient to Google’s algorithmic updates. It is wise to use AI in content generation, and always when complemented with human involvement.
On the other hand, if you want to try your luck with AI-generated content, do this on a website that might afford a hit. In other words, don’t use pure AI-generated content on your websites.
Would you like to read more about “Queries Regarding the Use of Generative AI for Content Creation? If so, we invite you to take a look at our other tech topics before you leave!
