A recurring thought when preparing articles online: Is it worth continuing to write in a digital publishing world flooded with machine-generated content?

As a reader, it is frustrating. Many of the articles I find on publishing sites are obviously AI-generated: they follow a rigid format, with a predictable language and a synthetic style. The information they provide is often outdated or utterly incorrect (at least in technical pieces which I typically seek), failing to offer any new insights into the topics.

While many publishers proudly embrace AI articles, a significant number of publications claim to be fighting against "AI-authors." From my experience, which may be anecdotal, they are struggling to keep up —and that's being kind. The number of AI-generated articles on most sites is so high that it's ridiculous. And yes, I'm looking at DEV, too.

Reader-me gets tired of encountering the same mannerisms and stony —or should I say "silicony"?— style that makes it indistinguishable whether the article is about technology, cooking, or car repairs. The same passionless feeling that doesn't convey anything beyond the hieratic nervousness of a middle-school student reading a report they probably didn't write themselves in front of a large audience.

As a writer, it is frustrating. AI is an amazing tool for editing grammar, checking spelling, or even suggesting improvements to articles. However, it is being abused by "writers" and publications that generate catchy titles and beautifully written, yet subpar, content.

People tell me, "If your writing is good enough, it will shine compared to AI-generated content." But that is wishful thinking. On sites flooded with AI content, it's almost impossible to stand out, no matter the quality. You could publish a Pulitzer-worthy article (not me), but good luck being discovered among hundreds of posts that drown your content in a sea of meaningless words.

There's some truth to it, though: in the end you end up being found. The question is, "By whom?" When I've had some modestly successful articles, it was only a matter of days before I found AI-generated imitations. And I'm not talking about coincidental articles on the same topic. They were summaries of my writings —Different enough to avoid plagiarism checkers, but close enough to be obvious copies.

The best case was when I wrote an article about 11 new features introduced in a programming language, but forgot to describe one of them (I still haven't). Days later, different articles popped up like mushrooms, all about these new features. Every single one describing 10 features and completely ignoring 1... The one I forgot to describe in mine. The same code examples, too.

Needless to say, those articles (even though they were later removed after me filing a copyright claim) got more interactions than mine. Were these reactions real or fake? I will never know. Was my article overshadowed by them? Yes. Because websites promote content with more views and interactions, as that's the content that sells.

A human writer is at a clear disadvantage. The time spent researching, writing, editing, and bringing everything together cannot compare to the five-minute turnaround that an AI needs. By the time ten human authors each write an article, a single "AI-author" copies those same ten articles and drops fifty more listicles and summaries of other blog posts, even from other AI-generated sources. This leads to content inbreeding that ends up resembling a photocopy of a photocopy.

I titled this article “Human Writing in the Age of AI,” but it probably should be updated to “Human Creation in the Age of AI.” While writing and static images are “easy targets,” AI is getting better at generating audio and video as well.

It’s only a matter of time before AI-generated multimedia content will floods every site. In part, because platforms will welcome such content. One recent example: Meta announced that it will unleash AI profiles on Facebook and Instagram.

They may see it as "organic growth," but there's nothing organic about it. It's artificial and fake, not genuine. There's nothing organic about it beyond the human's work that will be used to train those bots and systems, often violating the copyright and ownership of the original content.

It's difficult not to be cynical about it. People will see me as a dinosaur, a grumpy old man going against papyrus because we have stone tablets, or against the books because we have papyrus, or against the computers because we have books... And they will be missing the point. I'm not against AI —I use it daily to help me with certain tasks—, but when it comes to genuinely new content, especially articles, I'd rather have a human touch.