Why Professional Editing Still Matters in the AI Era

We live in a fascinating era of “Artificial Intelligence”, which is a wonderful tool, however as the word “artificial” suggests it does not replace the natural intelligence (human beings). AI is merely a tool used to assist in producing a document and not the final product.

For example, compare a simple sketch of a car with that of a designer sketch and you will note that they are vastly different. A simple sketch of a car merely provides you with the outline and basic features whereas the designer considers the proportions and stance, aerodynamic; ergonomics and packaging, safety regulations, manufacturing constraints, brand identity and marketing positioning.

AI can provide you with the sketch or outline, but lacks the knowledge, skills, action and assurance that we provide our clients with. It does not provide the tone and/or nuances; brand identity and marketing position; and legal risk of your business and your reputation.

The tone and/or nuances of your business

AI’s tone is fundamentally factual due to it being trained to use highly polished, structured and correct grammar which leads to a tone that sounds incredibly objective and certain however it can be “confidently wrong” and predict wrong information.

AI has the illusion of knowledge and does not “know” facts that humans do, particularly of our own businesses. It flawlessly replicates the appearance of deep knowledge and expertise but ultimately relies on statistical probability rather than lived experiences.

NB: AI relies on the prompts that you provide and can easily give you a false sense of security.

DO NOT FALL INTO THIS TRAP!

Your brand identity and marketing position

AI is designed to find statistical averages and therefore misses the mark on brand identity and marketing positioning. It is not distinctive and lacks human judgment, commercial risk-taking, and cultural empathy and therefore cannot build an emotional connection.

The fundamental disconnects that cause AI to produce generic branding and positioning include

• pattern-recognition versus originality;
• lack of true evaluation and judgment;
• tone that strips away witty nuances, specific terms, or quirky brand personalities; and
• does not have  creativity.

Legal risk and your reputation

Standard legal risks that you should be aware of include misinterpretation, privacy and data leaks, intellectual property issues, bias and discrimination and breach of fiduciary duties.

To minimize exposure to legal risk you should only use AI as a productivity tool rather than a final authority, ensuring all AI-generated content is strictly verified and establish internal acceptable policies ensuring that sensitive, confidential, or personal information is never put into external AI systems. Understand your obligations regarding automated decision-making under laws like POPIA.

Would you trust an intern who has known your business for roughly a week to put together a document and send it to your client prior to you having read it, commented on it and or edited it?

Conclusion

Professional editing still matters in the AI era because it cannot replace the human elements of your business which are originality, context, judgment, personality and creativity.