Does you use AI?
Short answer: yes and no.
I often use AI to brainstorm, organize, and research content. I also use AI to fine tune my SEO (headlines, meta data, descriptions, etc.). After writing the first draft of anything (articles, case studies, white papers), I use AI to double check my sources, to scrutinize my arguments, and to find alternative phrasing on individual passages.
Regarding fact-checking, any AI generated content is rigorously vetted before it’s approved for release. Data specific to clients of course is provided directly by clients themselves.
Finally, I occasionally use AI to generate images for the articles I write for this website.
AI False-Positive Disclaimer
As a technical and business marketing writer with decades of experience, I strive to deliver authoritative and highly accurate copy tailored for B2B audiences. To that end, I comply with strict grammatical standards, logical structuring, and industry taxonomy.
AI detector algorithms scan for (among other things) predictability, structural consistency, and error-free syntax.
The result is that AI detectors will routinely generate false positives on high-level technical writing, meaning they will often misdiagnose clean, expert human writing as machine-generated. Unfortunately this can’t be helped (heaven knows I’ve tried).
How do you address AI false positives?
Quite frankly, this is something I’ve been struggling with for a while. In the world of technical writing, it happens more often than most people know. And yet there’s little professionals can do about it.
One way I can address it is by sharing a little about myself and my background, so here goes.
I grew up in an academic family. Nearly all my first-degree relatives are writers or have a love of writing. In school, I was always top of my class for grammar and spelling. As an adult, I developed skills for communicating technical concepts. I’ve ghostwritten several non-fiction books, and writing historical fiction is one of my hobbies.
What I’m saying is that I earned my skills the hard way. Or the right way. Or the legitimate way. Or whatever way you want to call it. I’m a born-and-raised writer and I’ve been surrounded by writers (specifically academic writers) all my life. These people even speak with perfect grammar and an elevated vocabulary.
As an adult, I built a career in marketing and business technology, fields that demand a certain type of writing and a certain level of rigorous accuracy.
I’ve spent a lifetime honing my writing skills and now I just naturally write the way I write. Obviously, I’ve had no control over how AI has modeled its own writing, which apparently was by learning and drawing averages from volumes of similar material to mine. Even, I’m guessing, including mine.
What I can tell you though is that since the day those false-positive results were first brought to my attention, I began to panic. After all this time and effort, did I have to pack it in? Or, if I was going to continue my career in writing, how was I possibly going to manage the false positive problem?
What followed were months of learning how AI detectors work, and what I could do to “humanize” my writing (whatever that means… I mean, I’m human already, FFS).
But in the end, I realized that “dumbing down” or “messy-ing” my writing, or even changing my writing voice in the context of technical subjects just didn’t feel right. I decided then that I wasn’t going to compromise myself like that.
Now, all I can say is that this is how I actually write. What you see on this site, and everything I produce for my clients is, to the best of my abilities, professional grade material. And let’s face it, no one should accept anything less.
I hope this addresses any concerns about my use of AI, but if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out.