6 Freelance Skills That Artificial Intelligence Can’t Replace

At the beginning of this year, CNET made a bold move when it quietly published several articles generated by artificial intelligence. The experiment was a disaster: more than half of the published pieces contained errors. As a cautious freelancer looking for ways to keep up with AI writing tools, I performed an autopsy of the situation and realized one thing: even though generative AI is impressive, there are still some critical skills it cannot replace.

While artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT can be adept at churning out basic written content, freelance creatives are still a valuable part of the equation. Here are six skills where humans have the upper hand.

1. Interviewing

Many brands take a somewhat journalistic approach to content. This means that interviewing subject matter experts (SMEs) is an important skill to have under your belt. Having strong interview skills helps expand your professional network (which can help you break into new beats), allows you to spot story ideas for your next piece or novel, and helps develop your communication skills.

There’s much more to it than asking and answering questions. Engaging interviews require creating an emotional connection, applying soft skills, and crafting creative questions to get the best answer from an SME. Interviewing also means learning the art of conversation, especially when a source dodges questions or doesn’t give you the material you need to write a strong piece. At least for now, these kinds of conversational nuances are still firmly in human territory.

2. Editing

AI editing assistants like Grammarly and ProWritingAid are useful for catching grammatical and spelling errors, but they have their limits. Some common “corrections” can be irrelevant or confusing, and these tools don’t always catch nuances like homophones, homographs, and homonyms. Also, these platforms aren’t always able to spot the differences between your tone of voice and that of the brand.

In other words, there’s still a need for human editors as a second set of eyes, and this may even become more important as AI-generated content becomes more common (even brands willing to use AI for most of their content production will probably want a certain degree of human oversight).

3. Fact-checking

The errors at CNET and MSN tell us that readers are no longer buying misinformation. Statista data shows that less than50% of American adults consider news outlets to be trustworthy.

This is one of the reasons why publications likeReuters and brands likeFacebook are bringing dedicated fact-checkers onto their content teams. These professionals help check for fake news or uncertain claims published on social media, in visual materials, and within written content.

Because AI writing tools sometimes provide inaccurate information, human fact-checkers can help add a layer of trust and credibility to content published online.

4. Narrative development

Narrative creation — whether it’s writing scripts, video scripts, podcast episodes, long-form articles, or novels — requires a deep understanding of how to tell a great story. Skilled writers need to be able to blend styles and often experiment with words or punctuation to evoke emotions, drama, tension, and curiosity.

Even incontent marketing, the ability to develop characters is an important way to keep your target audience engaged.

These elements of storytelling require a level of critical thinking, emotional intelligence, and creativity that only humans can capture. Moreover, many narratives require writers to draw from/write about their own experiences and beliefs.

5. Writing about the human experience

Research byWordsrated shows that memoirs and biographies occupy the top spot on Amazon bookstore’s bestseller list: their sales have grown by 25% in the last five years.

Memoirs are not just for celebrities. Many professionals, including doctors, nurses, and teachers, write memoirs about their work and their lives (or have them written by a ghostwriter).

Firsthand stories are especially important when they come from marginalized and vulnerable communities. Those who have a story to tell often turn to professional writers and editors to help bring those stories to life on the page.

While AI tools may be able to help with things like summarizing, outlining, and ideation for these first-person accounts, creative humans are obviously still at the heart of this type of writing.

6. Public Relations

Freelance creatives can also dive into public relations (PR). Public relations involves increasing media coverage by creating brand awareness and outreach campaigns, building relationships with thought leaders and influencers, gathering backlinks for a brand, and putting out fires (as in the CNET example).

At the end of the day, humans still prefer to hear a message of condolence or apology from other humans rather than from robots. Moreover, skills like “spin” and networking are still fundamentally human-centered.

Fortunately for us freelance creatives, there are still some important skills that AI cannot replicate. In a fast-changing industry, it’s up to you to strengthen these abilities to remain relevant.

Source: Contently