People can sense when they’re being manipulated or duped. It’s an innate human quality, a survival mechanism. Artificial Intelligence (AI), despite its promise to revolutionize industries, possesses a property that can trigger this sense of distrust. When AI is used unchecked, it can alienate the people it seeks to serve. The question arises: Do people already hate AI? And if so, how can businesses and creators ensure that their use of AI fosters trust rather than resentment?
AI’s ability to analyze data and predict behavior is powerful, but it is also what makes it feel manipulative. For example, hyper-targeted advertising based on AI algorithms may hit the mark regarding relevance, but it often misses the human factor. Instead of delighting consumers, it leaves them feeling like mere data points in a system designed to exploit them.
To understand why some people are getting sick of AI, it’s important to examine its manipulative tendencies. Here are a few reasons:
Disingenuous
Lack of Transparency
Loss of Control
Dehumanization
When people are reading along or listening and can tell that the language is way too perfect and not-so-conversational, an alarm goes off, and they know it’s built by AI. Turnoff. If no one even bothered to write this, did they even read it before they posted? Why should I read it?
Many consumers don’t know when AI is being used. When they discover that a recommendation, advertisement, or even a chatbot conversation is AI-driven, it can feel like a bait-and-switch.
AI’s predictive capabilities can make users feel as though their choices are being preempted. This perceived loss of autonomy can breed resentment.
Interactions with AI, especially poorly designed systems, often lack the warmth and nuance of human engagement. Like chatbots. This can create a sense of alienation. “Will someone just friggin talk to me?”
AI is just a tool, and like any tool, its value depends on how it is used. To avoid alienating people, businesses and creators need to adopt thoughtful practices when integrating AI. Here are some guideposts to consider:
Always start content writing by using your heart, soul, and mind. How can you help, inform, or entertain? What’s your audience like and how will the message be delivered? You need to have all this baked before you even open an AI tool to help you write. To make things easier, include all this in your prompt.
If you’re using AI to do some writing, just use it as a warm-up session. Let it write 500 words for you, but give it tone and audience notes. Then ask it to re-write sections, add more examples, or use more conversational language. THEN you can take this into your writing software and make it great. Your final expertise is what makes this you. You are Andy Warhol. Someone just made a screen print, now you add the magic.
Always disclose when AI is being used in business processes. Transparency fosters trust. If customers know they’re interacting with an AI system, they’re less likely to feel duped. For example, labeling AI-generated content or making it clear that a chatbot is not human can go a long way in setting expectations.
AI is powerful, but it should not be the sole interface between businesses and consumers. Combining AI with human oversight ensures that the system remains grounded in genuine human understanding. For instance, AI can handle routine tasks while humans manage complex or sensitive interactions.
At TRO Agency, we’ve created StereoSEO to put the human creative back in SEO specifically. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has gotten very analytical and formulaic. Even commoditized. In order to gain a real competitive edge, we’re putting the human creative back in the process. A practice we recommend for everyone who wants to stand out and win in today’s crowded market.
Real Creative From Real People
People relate to the felt experiences of others. A language model can’t feel or relay feelings it’s had.
Better creative gets better traffic
More people will like and share content that is interesting, creative, and human. You can leave out the boring or overly professional stuff. AI is great at writing painfully professional work no one wants to see.
More traffic means more revenue
Whatever your goal is; attention, awareness, trust, stability or leads; you can achieve it with more traffic. with eyes, you have options. Attention is the most valuable commodity online and yours for the taking if you up your content game.
According to this study from MIT, for now, people favor human content.
When you’re reading a piece and realize it’s written by AI, and it occurs to you that you are possibly the only person who’s read it, including the author; you will get the frustration people feel about AI content. The feeling that nobody cares and you’ve been duped.
Like most of, us you will see AI as a tool. You are human and you use tools every day. You didn’t walk to the office or hand-wash your laundry. Someone invented some tools to help you get that done easier. Language model robots are just another tool to get writing tasks done faster, not take over. Stay human~
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