Artificial intelligence is no longer the stuff of science fiction movies or conspiracy theories. Over the last few years, AI technology has evolved by leaps and bounds to be used in self-driving cars, chatbots, and to curate personal music playlists. Keep reading to learn how new AI tools are changing the internet and the potential problems that come with them.
What Is Artificial Intelligence?
The concept of artificial intelligence has been around longer than you might think. As far back as the 1950s, scientists have been intrigued by the idea of machine learning. In his pioneering paper, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” the “father of computer science,” Alan Turing, discusses the idea of machines being able to think. Since then, humans have had a general fascination, and even a fear of, the idea of sentient machines.
According to IBM, artificial intelligence “leverages computers and machines to mimic the problem-solving and decision-making capabilities of the human mind.”
Without getting into the weeds too much, it is worth mentioning that not all AI is the same and there are different kinds used for different applications. Some examples of this are weak AI vs. strong AI and deep learning vs. machine learning.
Common applications and services utilizing AI today include customer service (virtual agents and voice assistants), speech recognition (talk-to-text and Siri), and computer vision (self-driving cars and photo tagging).
What Are Some Popular AI Tools?
As a digital marketing agency, the AI tools we’re more concerned with are geared toward content creation and generation. And although AI tools are still relatively new, you won’t be hard-pressed to find a company with the application or tool to help with your content generation needs, whatever they may be. There are already hundreds out there (with varying price points) to choose from. These are just a few:
SEO
- SEO Content Machine – “An AI-powered, cross-platform, multi-language content toolbox that allows anyone, regardless of skill to create SEO content in minutes.”
Blogging
- Jasper – “The generative AI platform for business that helps your team create content tailored for your brand 10x faster, wherever you work online.”
- Bramework – “An easy-to-use AI writer that helps bloggers, freelancers, and agencies save hours per blog post.”
Graphic Design
- Canva – “Convert text to image with an AI image generator.”
- OpenAI DALL-E 2 – “An AI system that can create realistic images and art from a description in natural language.”
Data Analytics
- Tableau – “A visual analytics platform transforming the way we use data to solve problems—empowering people and organizations to make the most of their data.”
As we mentioned before, there are a lot of AI tools to choose from. Many offer free trials to test out their features and capabilities before committing to a payment plan.
How Are AI Tools Changing the Internet?
Content Marketing
One of the primary ways new AI tools are changing the internet is by saving time in content marketing production. Trust us, we know how time-consuming it is to put together valuable marketing content that gets results for our clients. It’s no snap of the fingers. New AI tools can help copywriters, graphic designers, and creators save time and complete projects faster.
Perhaps one of the first sectors to see and utilize the vast potential of AI was DSPs (digital streaming platforms). Apps like Pandora, Spotify, and Apple Music have been using AI to suggest music based on the listener’s streams, likes, and dislikes for years now. Spotify recently took it a step further with its new AI DJ rollout.
Music
With the voice of X, Spotify’s Head of Cultural Partnerships, DJ is your own, personal AI guide that queues up music for you based on the entirety of your listening history. It even gives commentary and interesting facts about artists, tracks, and albums. If the user doesn’t like what DJ is playing, they can hit the DJ button to skip the song, change the artist, or adjust the genre.
Chatbots
Then there are AI chatbots such as ChatGPT from OpenAI, Bard from Google, and Bing AI from Microsoft that can do everything from helping with homework to writing code to simply holding a friendly conversation. Every day it seems there’s a new update as to what they can do. In essence, the user can ask the chatbot (almost) any question or give a command and receive an intelligent response based on AI-generated content.
However, out of the three, ChatGPT is the only bot available to the public at the time of this blog. Bing is still in the beta testing phase, and Bard is only available to a small test group.
Are New AI Tools Problematic?
Even though AI tools are powered by machines, they are created by humans. And with that comes the inevitable potential for human error. Most of these tools are created to help people, but that doesn’t mean problems won’t come up and errors won’t occur. And users have been quick to point these out.
Academics
For instance, there’s the issue of plagiarism and cheating by students claiming to write essays that are actually created by ChatGPT or other tools. In answer to this, educators have prohibited their use, some schools have blocked access to chatbot websites from their networks, and organizations have banned AI-generated submissions.
Misinformation
There’s also the problem of spreading misinformation if users don’t fact-check the AI-generated content they receive. After all, AI doesn’t really know the difference between what is true and what is false. In the simplest of terms, the system this technology runs on, known as large language models, consumes large volumes of data and uses statistics to make an educated guess on what word comes next in a sentence.
Harmful Content
For all the good new AI tools can do, they can also create/carry out harmful content/tasks if their safeguards are broken or bypassed. Bypassing these safeguards is called jailbreaking. After this, the user can command a chatbot to generate harmful content such as writing malware; intentional disinformation; and racist, sexist, and misogynistic material. Most developers take immediate action to remedy these jailbreaks as soon as they happen, but that doesn’t always stop users from trying again.
Should You Incorporate New AI Tools into Your Digital Marketing Strategy?
We know—every time you feel like you’re getting the hang of this digital marketing thing, the rug gets pulled out from underneath you. Maybe you’re wondering if you should incorporate some of these new AI tools into your digital marketing strategy. But you don’t know which one to choose from or you’re worried about your content sounding like it’s written by a robot. We get it.
The truth is: whether you like it or not, AI isn’t going anywhere; it’s now part of the digital landscape. In fact, we’re even experimenting with AI tools and technology to stay on the cutting-edge at Uptick (though, to mixed reviews). We’ve quickly learned not all AI is created equally, which Google and others have already pointed to. All this said, our digital marketing team is doing everything we can to experiment, incorporate what works, and scrap what doesn’t—to our clients’ ongoing benefit. Contact us today to keep your digital marketing strategy up-to-date and effective!
