Unlock the Secret to Making AI Content Feel Surprisingly Human—Here’s How!
Like it or not, for content writers, humanising AI content is rapidly becoming the new work. How do you do it?
Businesses are increasingly using AI to draft and edit content — blog posts, case studies, training outlines, policy documents, contracts, presentations and more. This week I heard about a life-writing company that uses AI to ghost books based on an interview transcript, and only brings in a human to edit and sense-check the final draft.
Many will deplore this sort of thing, but for content writers, it’s rapidly becoming the new work. Rather than write things from scratch, people are asked to take AI drafts and ‘make them human’. This requires a slightly different skillset to that required of a traditional content writer.
At least this requirement shows that businesses understand AI content on its own won’t cut it. In fact, the request is often just that: ‘make this sound like it’s not AI’. Everyone’s using it, but no one wants to be caught doing it. So how do you go about ‘humanising’ AI content:
Get rid of the obvious telltale AI icks
Nothing wrong with an em dash in its place, but the likes of ChatGPT use them to excess. Even to sprinkle a few in your copy is to face AI accusations.
Other telltale signs include the gratuitous use of emojis and a number of cheesy constructions. For example, this annoying little Q&A template: ‘The result? Increased sales, and a delighted client.’
Another would be the ‘Not X but Y’ pattern. As in: ‘This isn’t just an upgrade. It’s a whole new experience.’ And another would be colons in titles, eg ‘Humanising AI: Best practices for editors’.
AI loves clusters of three too, often alliterated. The tricolon is a well-known copywriting device, but the bots will tend to overdo it. As in: ‘This is a huge improvement, and it’s all down to Acme plc’s enthusiasm, experience and expertise’.
Look out for words that AI can’t resist. These tend to be words you’d never use yourself, such as ‘delve’, ‘amplify’, ‘leverage’ and — oh dear Lord, it’s everywhere — ‘spearhead’. There’s good tips here and a brilliant big list…
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