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In journalism, the integration of artificial intelligence has sparked both curiosity and apprehension, for very obvious reasons. Many hacks are understandably worried that it’s a threat to their jobs. However, Mike Masnick of Techdirt points towards an alternative approach. He has been using AI not to write copy for him, but to help him elevate his writing:

I have been using some AI tools over the last few months and have found them to be quite useful, namely, in helping me write better. I think the best use of AI is in making people better at their jobs. So I thought I would describe one way in which I’ve been using AI. And, no, it’s not to write articles.
It’s basically to help me brainstorm, critique my articles, and make suggestions on how to improve them.

He asks the AI to make suggestions about what he’s already written, and if they’re better, he adopts them, but with rewriting to make them even better. He uses it to push himself to be a better writer than the AI.

And that’s an interesting idea.

Adversarial AI to make us better

I’m fascinated by the idea of adversarial AI as a technique for forcing humans to get better. I first came across the idea at NEXT Conference in Hamburg last year, where Harry Yeff talked about how he used it to hone and improve his performances. He trained an AI model on his own voice, and started duetting with it:

Yeff’s experience was that, as he reached the pinnacle of his skill set, there was less challenge, less to learn from and draw from. He loved hearing and being challenged with these new ideas coming from his second self. “That was the ‘ah-ha’ moment, when I realised I was being challenged in new ways,” he says.

His interview is worth a watch:

AI as automated editor and sub-editor

And that brings us back to Masnick, using AI to challenge his own writing. He uses Lex.page, an AI-infused word processor, as a form of combined editor and sub-editor, but only once he’s written his piece:

While it said my opening was good, I wondered if it could be better, so I asked it for suggestions on a better opening. And its suggestions were good enough that I actually did rewrite much of my opening. My original opening had jumped right in to talking about “There I Ruined It,” and Lex suggested some opening framing that I liked better. Of course, it also suggested a terrible headline, which I ignored. It’s rare that I take any suggestion verbatim, but this time the opening was good enough that I used a pretty close version (again, this is rare, but it does often make me think of better ways to rewrite the opening).

This is a much more compelling use of AI. Don’t stuff your site full of deeply mediocre AI-generated content, just like everyone else is. Instead, use it to help drive you to do better work.

As a one-man band here on OM&HB, the one thing I’ve always missed is someone to challenge, push and edit me. That’s why I’ve enjoyed writing for NEXT so much over the past decade; I have Martin Recke to perform that role for me.

I’m going to have a look at Lex.page in the coming weeks — and let you know how I get on.

 

Do people really still try to control who links to their website in 2024? It seems so, according to a little research into linking policy done by Malcolm Coles:

10+ years ago I created an annual list of websites that FORBADE you from linking to them, DEMANDED you write to ask for permission or LIMITED links to only their home page. Royal Mail even promised to post me a paper licence.
Now a decade has passed, let’s see who’s still doing it …

Turns out the answer is ”plenty of people”, including Man United, Bill Gates and Thames Water.

Delightful as it is to see Malcolm blogging again, it’s significantly less so to see so many sites still fundamentally failing to understand how the web works.

Why Which?, Why?

Nick Heer is particularly baffled by the restriction that Which? tries to enforce:

Some of these are even more bizarre than a blanket link ban, like Which? limiting people to a maximum of ten links to their site per webpage.

Ian Betteridge thinks he has the answer:

it’s an attempt (albeit pointless) to prevent sites linking in a way which Google will define as spammy. Low-quality backlinks used to be a bit of an SEO nightmare, and you used to have to disavow them as toxic in Google Search Console. More than ten links to the same site from a single page is classic link spam, hence Which?’s attempt to stop it.

The crucial bit in that quote, though, is “albeit pointless”. How on earth will putting that restriction on your site stop the sort of digital lowlives that trade in spammy backlinks? Unless Which? has confidence that it could enforce those terms through the courts (which feels unlikely), it’s just a waste of everybody’s time.

I suspect most of the restrictions Malcolm found are just boilerplate — a left over from the early days of the web, when companies were still nervous of these weird internet people and their “linking”. \

30 years of digital ignorance

But if you’re still using pseudo-restrictions like that over 30 years into the life of their web, you’re just declaring your ignorance or lack of attention to detail on your website.

I give you full and free permission to link to any page on this site. There are many thousand to choose from…