With Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT increasing their reach into the writing and editing space, the relevant question becomes, “How important is the human element?”
Worth noting are the disclaimers expressed even by the purveyors of the new technology. The ubiquitous Grammarly, for example, stresses that the program is “not designed to replace editors or proofreaders.” Another automated tool that I use for a round of final checks in my own editing work is Perfect-It. The program’s tech engineer, Tom Waddell, expounds on the limitations of an AI editor, and the corresponding need for human input:
A human editor doesn’t just march along to a set of rules. An editor understands the subtlety of correcting and fine-tuning text while preserving the author’s voice. They know when to query the author and when to take a step back.
ChatGPT doesn’t truly understand what the author wants to convey. It’s editing based on probabilities. Hand it an entire document to edit, and verifying its changes becomes a chore – you’d pretty much have to re-edit the whole thing to catch all its mistakes.
What can a human do better?
A human editor can focus on your unique style, treatment of content, and publication needs. I can identify strengths and weaknesses in your writing, according to criteria you specify or that I can suggest from my own unique experiences as a writer, teacher, and editor. Since you are a human writer writing for human readers, the human editor has a crucial role in that interface.
Idioms and other riddles
Note that many expressions can be technically correct, according to the training rules of an AI tool, but read as awkward or inappropriate in the specific context used. This is the classic case of the idiom, evolved in a natural language setting but difficult to translate literally into another language. Even simpler automated tools such as spell-checkers will miss cases when a word is misspelled as another valid word (e.g., filed instead of field; dinners instead of diners; leaning instead of learning).
Finer nuances of wording
In just one recent editing job, I can identify numerous instances of wording that could be considered technically or grammatically correct, but needing an additional query or revision for greater clarity. Here are some examples with my associated comment or correction:
- “along with” > Implies “as well as”; or do you mean simply “with,” implying “by means of”?
- “interviews with respondents” > Shouldn’t it be specified “interviews with individual respondents”?
- “Particularly…” > Should be “In particular…”
- “On the contrary, researchers also exclaim…” > “On the other hand, researchers also note…”
- “customers lower service expectations” > “customers lowered their service expectations”
The bottom line
The temptation is to believe that AI writing and editing tools can do all the hard work for us. In reality they can be helpful in many ways—researching, drafting, rewording, checking for grammar and consistency—but the final result will never be fully trustworthy without a human intelligence to verify. What appears to be objective advice can be full of bias in the algorithm, or even outright “hallucination,” as the industry calls the outright fabrication of information. Feel free to explore the new wave of Intelligent language tools. But don’t forget the all-important limitation on their output: it’s Artificial.
Get in touch today for a human conversation about your editing needs and how I can help you reach your goals. We can even start with a free sample edit. Inquire now.
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