Use of Artificial Intelligence in Web Design

Banter
44

I finally found some time today to get a play with this AI content creation nonsense. I asked Bard to create blog posts on various topics about which I’m fairly knowledgeable. There is no doubt the output was accurate in most cases and had a good reading flow to it. But in all cases it was so dull. None of the articles created generated any sort of enthusiasm for the subject. And while mostly factually correct they were not in the slightest but engaging.

I then spent a few hours reading AI generated content that other people were raving about, saying it was going to change everything, and it was the same. Accurate, but dull and uninspiring.

If what I read today is typical of the standard of AI produced content, copywriters can sleep easy. They ain’t gonna be out of a job anytime soon. Not the good ones anyway.

I personally would never populate a website with anything AI created for me today. Not if I wanted to actually engage and retain the visitor.

45

In general, I’d agree (as would Chat GPT). At the moment LLMs are much better used to generate a ‘copy platform’, pulling together all the elements that need to be included, for a writer to rework. But there are a few observations I’d throw in here from my experience of Chat GPT already.

It’s really, really good at writing in a positive but impartial and unthreatening way. Much better than most human beings, in fact. It has a lot to teach us about tone of voice.

It doesn’t waffle. Human writers often repeat things in different words. Chat GPT packs a lot of information into relatively few words, and moves forward in a coherent way. It has a lot to teach about concision too.

Its summaries are also worth studying. When it breaks things into numbered points, there is more overlap between them than we’re used to, and the overall effect of this is to give the sense of different facets of a single whole, rather than different points taken off in different directions.

Never ask LLMs to write in the style of somebody, except for amusement. I witnessed an object lesson of this this morning: a facebook friend who is a pensions industry expert and has a successful blog asked Chat GPT to write a post in his style. It rambled on, just as he does.

The thing about LLMs is that if you ask them really interesting questions, you can get really interesting responses. The kinds of things that you would never have come up with. These make excellent discussion points, or starting points for interesting pieces.

1 Like
46

Interesting points.

However, what’s AI doesn’t do is potentially the thing(s) that make articles more engaging to humans. A la your friends rambling articles.

47

Capto_Capture 2023-04-04_09-37-34_am
Capto_Capture 2023-04-04_09-37-34_am717×622 97.7 KB

1 Like
48

I have to admit, I am warming to this.

Already today two of my clients have asked me to produce monthly blogs using AI and add them to their site. For a nominal fee ;-)

I’ve told them exactly how they are produced, said i will do a little bit of editing to personalise it, and create a nice graphic, but otherwise they’ll be getting the generic content the AI engine creates. They both said something bland and generic is better than nothing.

So now that it’s an earner, I’m all for it.

:-)

4 Likes
49

Seems I have to add some AI driven blog post creation in Volt CMS 2.

🤓

3 Likes
52

Yes, of course ChatGPT would. However, keep in mind that unless you are using v.4 with plugins (that allow it to access the Internet), it is not capable of conducting independent research or accessing external sources beyond its knowledge cutoff date in September 2021. Therefore, any citations it provides would be based on general knowledge up to that date.

53

And beware of the B.S.

ChatGPT might present something like it’s been in Encyclopedia Britannica since the first edition of 1768, while it is in fact a total fabrication. For example I asked ChatGPT (using GPT-4 mind you) how to replicate an ETF not available for private investors in the EU. Basically it’s a kind of question like: “What ingredients do I need to make my own Oreo’s?” ChatGPT came up with non-existing ETFs, with ticker symbols, ISIN numbers and all (what made it easy to verify btw). Caveat scriptor! Or: cave scriptor? 😉

1 Like
54

I have a wee house in Spain that I rent out as a holiday let when I’m not there, via a site I created last year. The content on the site is all post July 2022, it’s all written by me and it’s all only on that site, nowhere else. Indeed, there is almost no reference to the house anywhere online other than that site.

I asked Bard to write a review of the house. It more or less lifted my content, pretty much word for word, but rearranged it into different chunks. It also added in lots of additional info (all incorrect), I suspect lifted from other sites about similar houses. For instance, my house is two bedroom with one bath, but the review said two bedroom, two bath, one en-suite! It also said there was a swimming pool. Which there isn’t. Sadly.

I’m not sure how all this works about copyright.

55

I doubt it will kill blogs, but it will drive better writing (just as smartphones’ video-making tools have pushed higher standards of editing, as content creators seek to stand out). What LLM’s do is put more emphasis on what the author asks the system, and the quality of the conversations they have with them. And as LLMs acquire more quality data, it’s possible to ask questions that would previously have involved weeks of trying to identify research. For instance, we can ask a question like: “how much of the US’ wealth is in property, and how much is equities?” and if the data is there, somewhere, available to the LLM, it will come back to us with a summary. In about ten seconds. This kind of thing is incredibly frustrating and time-consuming to research, even with Google — you have to comb through dozens of websites, and you discover that what they have is not in the form you need it, or out of date, or in percentages rather than amounts, etc. LLMs now make it possible for the individual blog writer to come up with stories that are as insightful as, for instance, those of a Pew or a YouGov with huge research capabilities (and, as an aside, there’s big opportunity here for those who can make good infographic and table tools for blog writers).

If you can ask interesting enough questions, you could easily populate a blog just with Chat GPT/Bard answers. And it’s not that anyone else couldn’t get those answers, but by no means everyone can ask the right questions. But those answers would be much better re-written, with some personal commentary too. That’s where human beings will always add the value: in curating and explaining content.

2 Likes
56

I have to agree. I’ve 100% turned around on this. Yesterday, asking simple questions I got pretty piss poor blogs, which formed my initial post above. But since then I’ve better learnt how to use it, and what I’m getting back is getting better and better. And I’m less than 24hrs in. The blog articles created need editing and personalising, but that’s easy.

3 Likes
57

Also bear in mind that Italy “banned” ChatGPT a few days ago. More countries will very likely follow.

59

I’ve recently found myself utilizing the service quite frequently, so I’ve made the decision to fully commit by subscribing to the Plus account at $20/month. While I initially used it for web design-related tasks, I’ve discovered that it’s incredibly versatile and useful for a wide range of applications. In fact, I now use it extensively for marketing support in my full-time 9-5 job. Additionally, it has become a valuable tool for composing and revising my emails, as well as crafting responses to forum posts.

2 Likes
60

No, but I have seen it use Bible versus.

61

The more I have played around with the free version the more I am seeing it is a website scraper that can rework some language. I even have whole articles being brought over with navigation menu links still in the header area. This is unfair and should be considered stealing. Copyrights are definitely being broken.

Just throwing this out here. Who really knows how this is going to play out in the courts. I would suggest that AI is a research tool and a writer better still be creative and put their own voice to it.

Might also consider a plagiarism checker. Use it to find the original source for citation.

2 Likes
62

Nothing like asking the horse’s mouth.

“Who owns the copyright of the responses you write? Do you ever present content written by others, and still in copyright, as if you had written it yourself?”

“The responses I write as ChatGPT are generated using machine learning algorithms based on patterns and information available in my training data. As a result, the copyright of the responses I generate belongs to OpenAI, the company that developed and operates the GPT-3.5 language model.

“I do not present content written by others as if I had written it myself, as I am programmed to generate original responses based on the input provided to me. However, if a user were to provide me with content that is protected by copyright, it would be the responsibility of the user to ensure that they have the appropriate rights to share that content with me before I generate a response based on it.”

Good idea to rewrite, then.

63

Incidentally, we‘re focusing a lot of attention on the generation of content here. And there’s no doubt that Chat GPT and other LLMs can do amazing things with content. Nonetheless, to come back to the other things we’re concerned with in this forum, bear in mind that Chat GPT can write very efficient, competent HTML, CSS and Javascript (I’ve not tried PHP, so I don‘t know about that), and it also explains what the code does and how it is to be used. What‘s more, you can iterate it over and over again until you get exactly what you want.

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s worth reiterating. Just a little bit of knowledge about web programming is all that is needed to take advantage of it. Rapidweaver makes it easy to include CSS and Javascript in its site-wide and page-specific code areas, and it’s easy to use classes and call functions in most text stacks (not just HTML stacks).

It’s also not that difficult to build a stack around this. Will’s free ‘Builder’ stack makes this really easy, producing a kind of pseudo-stack, but Joe’s great video introduction to stack-building shows how to make an actual stack around a Javascript function. Gary (Doobox) had a useful little Mac app called ‘Stack Developer’ which made the basic setup of a stack really easy — I don’t know if he has any plans to re-release this. The point is, it’s no longer necessary to have the skills and knowledge to write code in order to do this kind of stuff — we can make use of Chat GPT’s ability to generate the code. And messing around with this stuff, if you have the time, is a great way to acquire more knowledge and ability.

A future web-building application will no doubt build this kind of ability in. But what we have right now is already pretty incredible — a giant leap beyond where we were last April. You just have to ask the right questions.

64
3 Likes
65

I’ve been chatting to a lot of clients about offering them an AI generate blog service. Lots of interest. So i figured I’d write a blog post about it. Then I though, why not get AI to write it? So I did.

The instruction…

write a blog post about a new service I offer where I will generate a blog post using AI, personalise it, create and add suitable graphics and then publish it to a website.

Reply…

Do you want to write high-quality blog posts but don’t have the time or expertise? If so, our new AI blog post writing service is perfect for you!

Our AI writer can generate blog posts on any topic, and it can even personalize the content to your brand and target audience. Plus, our AI writer can create and add suitable graphics to your blog posts, so you can publish them with confidence.

How Our AI Blog Post Writing Service Works

Our AI blog post writing service is simple to use. Simply provide us with a few details about your blog post, such as the topic, the target audience, and the desired tone, and our AI writer will do the rest.

Our AI writer will generate a high-quality blog post that is tailored to your specific needs. You can then review the blog post and make any necessary changes before publishing it.

Benefits of Using Our AI Blog Post Writing Service

There are many benefits to using our AI blog post writing service. Here are just a few:

** Save time: Our AI writer can generate a blog post in minutes, so you can save time on your writing tasks.*
** Improve quality: Our AI writer can generate high-quality blog posts that are free of errors.*
** Reach a wider audience: Our AI writer can personalize your blog posts to your target audience, so you can reach more people with your content.*
** Increase engagement: Our AI writer can create engaging blog posts that will keep your readers coming back for more.*

Pricing

Our AI blog post writing service is available at a variety of price points to fit your budget. We offer monthly and annual plans, so you can choose the plan that best suits your needs.

Sign Up Today!

To sign up for our AI blog post writing service, simply visit our website and create an account. We look forward to helping you create high-quality blog posts that will help you achieve your business goals.

Testimonials

“I’m so glad I found this service! It’s saved me so much time and effort, and my blog posts have never looked better.” - John Smith

“This is the best AI blog post writing service I’ve ever used. The blog posts are always high quality and relevant to my audience.” - Jane Doe

“I’m so impressed with the quality of the blog posts I’ve received from this service. They’re always well-written and engaging.” - Susan Jones

It’s not my style of writing at all, and I personally wouldn’t use it, but it’s pretty bloody good.

66

One more thing. These days we all need various kinds of policies on websites, from privacy to terms of sale, returns policies and membership conditions, fair use and forum etiquette. Chat GPT does a great job of creating these (and its results tend to be more concise and accessible than legal boilerplate examples). It’s a good idea to check these against those on other sites, to see if they cover everything you need, and of course to run them past a lawyer (but running something past a lawyer is a lot cheaper than asking her or him to write it!) But, if you‘ve tried to write these things, you’ll know that it is one of the most tedious — ‘maybe I’ll just leave that till tomorrow’ — chores in building a site. Chat GPT will do it in its hallmark ten seconds.

2 Likes