Tempted To "Rewrite With AI" On LinkedIn™?
LinkedIn™ is inviting us to rewrite our posts and profiles using AI.
But just because we can, does it mean we should? 🤔
AI is everywhere and is certainly not going away. And whilst it has some major benefits, it equally has some down sides as Nigel Greenwood and I chatted about in last month's LinkedIn LoveIn.
Nigel Greenwood is a customer experience expert and the founder of BuBul: better business building, an intelligent business advice software. He has been working with the University of Bradford to incorporate AI into BuBul so has first hand experience of applying AI in practice.
Watch the LinkedIn™ LoveIn here or see below for a recap of what Nigel Greenwood and I discussed.
From a customer experience perspective, Nigel has seen companies increasingly use AI in the form of chatbots to 'try' help make their customer experience more effective.
In essence chatbots try to have conversations with customers (real people) but the chatbot can only deliver an answer from material already within frequently asked questions. The same FAQs the customer has probably already been through on the website, which only creates more frustration and less customer satisfaction.
For Nigel, the challenge with AI is that it can't anticipate how a customer is feeling, what a customer's needs are, resulting in bland responses. As such AI to him, feels like it's less intelligent and more artificial!
And this is the problem with using AI on LinkedIn to rewrite your posts.
AI is great for researching topics, for coming up with content ideas but misses the point when it comes to writing from a human perspective.
We also have to be careful with the information that AI creates as Nigel pointed out, using the University of Bradford’s MBA programme that he supports as an example.
Nigel did his own MBA a couple of years ago and his dissertation took him weeks to do. But the University is now finding dissertations that have been written with AI.
AI will reference a journal that exists but will quote an article that doesn’t exist.
And it’s easy to spot because in the references AI will reference a journal that exists but will quote an article that doesn’t exist. So what AI is doing is taking the content from a number of places and cramming it together and essentially inventing an article.
And when you consider all the rubbish out there, the conspiracy theories etc, AI is taking all of that into consideration as well. AI uses information from the internet so if it gets something wrong from one or several sources, it's going to be spreading that misinformation.
So, whilst AI is great for inspiration, for ideas and other points of view you may not have thought of, relying purely on AI to generate a whole article or post and assuming that that content reflects you and your values and what you believe is just really dangerous. You’ve got to be able to spot those mistakes. It needs human intervention.
People Buy People
The challenge with AI is that it can’t replicate a person or a company and their values, what they're going through, what they're trying to do and how they're trying to do it. As humans we're hardwired to react to stories rather than just facts, so often posts written in AI creates content that just doesn't feel right because the content is beige, bland and off brand.
Take this post of Nigel’s for example:
As this post was intended to be humorous, Nigel structured the post so that the opening was “what a fantastic feeling when all your hard work pays off and you can start to live your dream” followed by a large white space so that people only saw that first line and had to click on 'see more' to read the rest of the post, which wasn't actually about him but about his neighbour.
This is how it was rewritten using the "Rewrite With AI" button:
When the post was rewritten in AI as prompted by LinkedIn, it failed to pick up the humour in the original post, messed up the space and missed the point completely.
It also asked us to “Let’s all take a moment”. Who would say that? 🤮
Plus check the spellings. LinkedIn's "Rewrite with AI" uses American spellings so we have neighbor instead of neighbour for example.
LinkedIn™ Poll: AI - The Good, The Bad & The Downright Ugly!
Prior to the LoveIn with Nigel I did a quick LinkedIn poll to see how many people would or wouldn’t use AI to write their LinkedIn Posts.
You can see the results here: click here to see the LinkedIn poll
The results showed that just under 40% of people would use AI to write LinkedIn posts IF it improved.
Whilst 21% said Never because it’s not authentic and 29% said Yes.
Reading through the comments you can definitely see the good, bad and ugly of AI!
👍 The Good: AI is a tool that can be really useful if you use it in the right way and it has different uses for different people.
- It supports creativity through brainstorming and improving headlines, research and exploring other points of view.
- It’s a time saving tool.
- Accessibility: can help overcome ADHD blockages and dyslexia challenges by providing ideas and structure.
👎The Bad: the downside to AI at the moment is very much around authenticity, and content feeling off brand.
- It doesn’t capture the right tone or personality of the poster.
- You can’t rely on AI as it needs extensive editing.
- Some suggested that AI content underperformed.
👎👎 The Ugly: Because AI relies on information from various sources there is an issue with the content it creates which can pose an IP/copyright risk.
- It also make mistakes, which if not spotted leads to inaccuracies from unreliable sources, leading to the spread of misinformation which other AI actions can also spread incorrectly.
- Concerns about how data is shared by AI for other AI users.
- Inadequate inclusivity features such as accurate alt text, image descriptions, use of camel case as standard etc.
So AI on LinkedIn™ - is it there yet?
Whilst there are some amazing developments happening thanks to AI, I would say that using the "Rewrite With AI" feature on LinkedIn is a definite No No - at the moment!
Alexander Worth summed up why so much better than me . . .
"When you opt to "Rewrite With AI" on LinkedIn, the content that’s generated doesn’t reflect the user’s tone of voice, personality or values and therefore misses the mark with the all-important authenticity and engagement.
All that AI on LinkedIn has to go on is your original post copy. It has no further context or reference on who is writing it, for whom, their values etc. Without this knowledge it struggles to produce personalised, engaging content.
For authentic, personalised content the journey must start with the person and then the training of an AI model to fit the individual and their needs."
So, it’s watch this space for AI on LinkedIn™. Will it evolve to the extent that we can train it?
OR is there really no point whatsoever having the option to "Rewrite With AI" on LinkedIn and instead use other AI models such as ChatGPT where we can take the time to train it on our style and personality.
For now, I for one am definitely NOT using LinkedIn's option to "Rewrite With AI" thank you very much LinkedIn!
💥 If LinkedIn isn’t working hard for you or you’re not sure where to start with using LinkedIn, email judy@judithparsons.com or connect with me on LinkedIn to chat about how I can help.
Or book a virtual brew here and let’s make LinkedIn work for you . . . ⭐
JUDY Parsons Independent LinkedIn™ Training & LInkedIn Marketing Mentor
#LinkedInMarketing #LinkedInTraining #LinkedInStrategy #LinkedInTips #LinkedIn #AI
