Role of Artificial Intelligence in the Writing Industry

The reason why it’s difficult for people to imagine the success of AI writers is because a lot
of them have failed to perform at the same level as human writers. But it does not mean that
they don’t have potential.

For now, there are AI copywriters who don’t need to get paid, rest, or incur expenses. These
copywriters can perform versatile tasks, from analyzing articles to drafting ad campaigns.

Take AI writer H
​ eliograf ​for instance. The Washington Post uses the robot to write simple
and short stories that can attract more pageviews. Meanwhile, journalists focus on creating a
higher-level investigation and analysis of events.

Different Ways AI can be used in the writing Process

So AI can write poems, novels, and news reports. However, these robots are not accessible
by the public. Currently, the AI that everyone can access can only perform basic writing and
proofreading tasks.

Here are the different ways people use artificial intelligence in writing:

1) Smart proofreading

Almost all software vendors try their best to assist writers by including proofreading features
in their tools. These features usually detect grammar and spelling errors and correct them.

More advanced AIs such as Microsoft Word’s Editor feature have better understanding of
context, so it can provide something more than simple proofreading. It can understand
writing nuances and flags overused and complex words. There are also online writing
assistants, like Grammarly, that allow you to check contextual spelling, grammar,
punctuation, style, and sentence structure.

2) Plagiarism check

Sometimes, when referencing someone else’s ideas, writers err in using their actual words.
This is not acceptable in writing professional reports and articles. Luckily, there are tools that
will help you detect plagiarized content. These tools work on AI based algorithms.

3) Content assessment
Tools like Atomic Reach and Yoast use a scoring system to check the quality of your
content. Mainly, they evaluate the readability of your content. Are your paragraphs too long?
Have your written wordy sentence? Have you made good use of transition words? How
many sentences contain passive voice?

4) Quick Scanning

To write a good article, you need to read a good amount of materials first. The problem is
that there are too many materials to read and too little time to do it. It takes time to find the
key highlights of the different references.

Luckily, there are AI algorithms, like Algorithmia’s Summarizer, that help provide smart
summaries of long texts. These help you get the essence of all your reading materials, so
you don’t have to scan them yourself.

A cloud-based artificial intelligence service, T

​ extio is another example of how software is
trying to help people write better -- or, at least, more effectively in the achievement of
specific goals.

Textio was founded by big-data experts from Microsoft and Amazon. Their slogan is
"words + data = magic."

Textio applies big data to link language with specific outcomes. For instance, verbatim job
ads can be fed into the Textio algorithm, along with data on who applied, and the system can
figure out which words and phrases either succeeded or failed in support of the hiring
company's recruiting goals.

For example, if a company's goal is to not push away qualified female candidates, it's useful
to learn from Textio that phrases like "under pressure" (as in, "we're looking for a candidate
that works well under pressure") tend to drive women job hunters away, while phrases like
"passion for learning" tend to attract women to jobs.

Some of the "gender biases" that Textio ferrets out with its big-data crunching are puzzling,
but they can be verified statistically. For example, more women are more likely to apply for a
job if the word extraordinary is used in the listing instead of the word exceptional.

Gender bias in job postings is one problem Textio claims to help with. The other is the need
to simply hire better candidates, regardless of gender.

Textio costs $59 per user per month. After you sign up, you can just copy and paste a job
posting into the Textio Web form, and the system will spit out its analysis.

Textio will highlight words and phrases known to turn away candidates, either because
they're too jargony or too cliché, or because they contain keywords that Textio's analysis has
determined will result in inferior candidates or unsuccessful hires.
Before Textio got into the business of detecting gender bias, the company used its analytical
kung fu to try to predict which Kickstarter projects would be funded. And in the process, it
discovered that the way a Kickstarter page was built and worded had a bigger influence on
funding than what the product was.

Even now, according to Textio CEO and co-founder Kieran Snyder, who has a Ph.D. in
linguistics and worked at both Microsoft and Amazon, people use Textio's service to
evaluate all kinds of communications, even though the system is optimized on a huge set of
job listings.

Unlike Watson Tone Analyzer, Textio could be significantly useful even to the most skilled
writers, such as professional novelists or, say, tech journalists.

Even great writers can (and often do) write in a way that's unappealing to one gender or
another, or in a way that will unintentionally push away prospective employees or
crowd-funding investors.

The reason Textio works is that it doesn't try to understand human language -- something far
beyond even the most advanced A.I. Instead, it does what computers are good at -- it finds
correlations in data sets. It knows that the word exceptional in a job listing will attract fewer
women candidates than the word extraordinary, even though it has no idea what exceptional
means or why the correlation exists.

Some people may be tempted to fear that software, supercomputers and algorithms are
going to replace us all -- including those of us who write for a living or for whom writing is a
major part of how we make our living. Some may be tempted to dismiss these fears and say
that software can never replace people in these discipline. Either way, this technology is
astounding.

But there is a winning combination in all of this. As the technology gets better, it's becoming
clear that, ultimately, the literary and creative skills of human writers combined with artificial
intelligence writing tools can help us communicate better.

​In 2014, George R. R. Martin, the acclaimed writer of the Song of Ice and Fire saga,
explained in an interview how he avoids modern word processors because of their pesky
autocorrect and spell checkers.

Software vendors have always tried to assist writers by adding proofreading features to their
tools. But as writers like Martin will attest, those efforts can be a nuisance to anyone with
more-than-moderate writing skills.

However, that is changing as AI is getting better at understanding the context and intent of
written text. One example is ​Microsoft Word’s new Editor feature​, a tool that uses AI to
provide more than simple proofreading.

Editor can understand different nuances in your prose much better than code-and-logic tools
do. It flags not only to grammatical errors and style mistakes, but also the use of
unnecessarily complex words and overused terms. For instance, it knows when you’re using
the word “really” to emphasize a point or to pose a question.
It also gives eloquent descriptions of its decisions and provides smart suggestions when it
deems something as incorrect. For example if it marks a sentence as passive, it will provide
a reworded version in active voice.

Editor has been well received by professional writers (passive voice intended), though it’s
still far from perfect.

Nonetheless AI-powered writing assistance is fast becoming a competitive market.

Grammarly,​ a freemium grammar checker that installs as a browser extension, uses AI to
help with all writing tasks on the web. ​Atomic Reach is another player in the space, which
uses machine learning to provide feedback on the readability of written content.