AI vs. Ghostwriting: Can Machines Replace Human Creativity?
September 9, 2024
The argument about AI replacing writers has been going on for some time now. The truth is that lots of different writers have been replaced by AI: marketers, blog writers, even reporters. But can AI replace ghostwriting?
Whether you’re an individual looking to write a memoir or a corporation that aspires to create a blog on thought leadership, hiring a ghostwriter or a ghostwriting company means hiring a professional to write on your behalf.
Normally, the ghostwriter’s name is never mentioned. Only the “author” who used the ghostwriter’s services is credited.
With that in mind, and considering how many people use AI to help with writing, is there a difference between using AI or working with a ghostwriter? In both cases the “author” isn’t doing the writing, so does it matter if the actual writer is a human or a machine?
There have been recent discussions on sites such as Reddit and Quora about the similarities between content generated by AI and content generated by a ghostwriter.
Before leaping into exploring whether AI can overtake traditional ghostwriting (and it is a tradition), it’s wise to understand the differences between AI-generated content and ghostwritten content.
AI vs. Human Ghostwriters
At first glance, you might think that creating content with AI and working with a ghostwriter are similar processes. An obvious similarity is that in both scenarios, the name on the byline won’t match the actual creator.
Take a short memoir, for example, consisting of a few thousand words. It could certainly be crafted by a human ghostwriter or generated using AI when you provide the raw material. But the end products are likely to differ significantly for many reasons, which we’ll discuss. This is because the process and essence of creation are quite different.
You’ll find a lot of nuanced differences between what humans can do and what machines still can’t. So, what would happen if you used artificial intelligence to write something as personal as a memoir because you don’t believe you can affordto hire a ghostwriter?
One Reddit thread theorizes that AI can, in a sense, “democratize” writing. For example, the argument goes, a Hollywood actor with plenty of money can afford to hire a ghostwriter to write his memoirs, but your Average Joe or Jane cannot. That’s one reason you might see so many memoirs by famous people and very few by unknown writers.
Some argue: doesn’t AI-assisted writing level the playing field, with ChatGPT and other programs giving an ordinary persona kind of hired writer?
As you will see, AI comes with problems as well as advantages.
Advantages and Limitations of AI
Lee Barnatham, writing on the LinkedIn blog, says, “Even AI realizes humans are superior in some ways.” How so?
First, to be clear, he’s referencing an article posted on hypotenuse.ai, whose AI (called Bespoke) produces blog posts, product descriptions, social media posts, ads, and other products. The article discusses the pros and cons of using AI or flesh-and-blood human writers.
“Naturally,” he says, “the site describes all the great things AI can do, and it’s probably written by AI, specifically Bespoke.”
The supposedly AI-generated article concludes that when content needs a “personal touch,” which includes storytelling and editorial writing, human writing is invariably superior. AI is only better in that it can generate a lot of content in a short time.
The article Barnatham refers to points to four “pros” of using AI:
- AI saves time. Whether outlining or drafting, AI generates content in seconds. Barnatham has no argument with this.
- AI is consistent. However, as Barnatham points out, that consistency is “standard and average,” and it’s not what you get when you work with a ghostwriter.
- AI is cheap. But Barnatham adds, “you get what you pay for.”
- AI is scalable. It generates a huge amount of content, but the quality won’t be there because a machine doesn’t possess human skills such as “creativity, empathy, and expertise.”
As we can see, even the “pros” have some drawbacks. Let’s consider the outright “cons” of using AI, according to the same writer:
- First up, AI lacks true creativity.
- AI really can’t contextualize. Only a human being can understand context.
- AI lacks emotion. It’s generated by a machine, after all.
- An overreliance on AI will decrease quality in the long run.
Creativity, contextualization, and emotion—all involve real, rather than artificial, intelligence. So how does AI-assisted writing fare when compared to working with a ghostwriter?
Advantages and Limitations of Human Ghostwriters
As for human beings, Barnatham says that the pros are “emotion, originality, creativity, and versatility, meaning humans can write in various formats such as blogs, books, and social media.”
Can we assume that there are also cons to using a ghostwriter?
After all, humans are biased and have less scalability, and writing is time-consuming and expensive in terms of hiring.
Barnatham addresses each of these points in turn:
- Humans are biased, he agrees, but why would AI systems created by humans not be? He notes that a number of scientific, educational, and commercial articles have been published about how human bias affects AI.
- Humans can’t write for as long a time as AI, he agrees, “but the quality a human brings is worth the extra time.”
- Answering the hypotenuse.ai claim that “AI is faster and more accurate,” Barnatham doesn’t question AI’s obvious speed, but does question its accuracy.
- A last crucial point Barnatham makes is that AI doesn’t know what’s real. “It’s up to humans to critically examine what AI generates,” he concludes, “and when they don’t, it’s disastrous.”
“If you want to stand out,” Barnatham insists, “you need a human ghostwriter.” Don’t write a book with AI, he insists. “Use a human.”
Ask the Experts
Many knowledgeable people have weighed in on the topic of AI vs. ghostwriters with a variety of considerations, including ethical ones.
As Dr. Patricia Farrell asks on Medium, “If ghostwriters write the entire book, script, or whatever, how is that different from AI doing the same?”
And one of the questions that comes up in ghostwriting is this: who is doing the creative work? This question often unsettles Americans, in particular. We tend to value the creative individual, even the genius, and we especially value authenticity. We believe stories, songs, scripts, and art should all come from the heart. If a machine makes them, we tend to think they’re inauthentic or mechanical.
Dr. Farrell’s conclusion about AI-assisted writing is this: “To stay in the safe zone, we may use AI to produce outlines, dialogue, headlines, or other minor projects where our input determines the resulting material.” AI, she says, can assist, rather than replace us.
One reason her assertion if true is that AI can’t replace the human-to-human interaction between an author and a ghostwriter. When you’re working with a ghostwriter, you can communicate emotions, along with the voice and tone you want to achieve in your book.
Ali Lincoln, writing for Inside Higher Ed, says the notion of using either AI or ghostwriting to generate content exists “in an ethical gray area.” In either case, someone or something else is writing for you, and you claiming the writing as your own makes for ambiguity.
Even editing affects the question of authorship. If she, as an editor, extensively changes a manuscript, she asks, does that make her a co-author?
In my experience, writing is always collaborative. Take screenwriting, for example; when I studied it in graduate school, my professor told us from the start that in Hollywood, screenwriting is never done by one person. A script will continually change all the way through filming as directors, even actors, have a hand in modifying the original.
Editors, too, are often unsung collaborators on all types of writing, since they routinely make changes to text.
It’s important to consider that for many people, writing is not in their wheelhouse. They may have a story to tell and just not have the skills to tell it. Some people are natural storytellers, natural writers, while many aren’t. Those who aren’t need help. If you’re one of those people, the question is, should you utilize AI or hire a ghostwriter?
As Ali Lincoln says, even though ghostwriting is “My words, their name,” a human being is the better option. She says, “I do my best to capture key phrases and language from conversations with the eventual author to include, and often the person I’m writing for makes at least some edits to reflect their voice.”
Lincoln goes on to say, “I found ChatGPT wanting. No matter how I adjusted my settings or tweaked my request, the output always required edits.” The drafts that came out of the machine, she said, tended to sound like someone who relied on a thesaurus. The drafts were “clunky and repetitive and not reflective enough of the ideas I came up with and wanted to express.”
If ChatGPT is good for anything, Lincoln concludes, it might be for making an outline, or even a first, very rough draft.
Rachel Lehmann-Haupt, writing for StoryMade, where she is Founding Editor-In-Chief and Creative Director, says the most important lesson she learned as a writer came from her mentor, New York magazine founder Clay Felker. He advised that she “Consistently articulate a strong voice and point of view.”
It was probably no surprise that when she tested out a new AI tool, her reaction was, “Meh.”
Lehmann-Haupt says one of the main reasons companies are increasingly reliant on AI is that it saves time, but time saved does not equate with quality. “I don’t think I’ve read one piece of content produced by AI that doesn’t need a human touch,” she says.
Another article on Medium, this oneby ghostwriter Terseer Gundu, points out that though AI is a good tool, ghostwriters, as human beings, “have a deep understanding of the writing process.” They can give feedback and guidance to clients and can more deeply attend to the writing to be sure it’s engaging and accurate.
Writing in June of 2023, Gandu adds that AI, still at a relatively early stage of development, lacks the nuance of human language. It still sounds robotic at times.
Gundu advocates not relying on AI to write but using a combination of some AI content with that of a ghostwriter—essentially, AI-assisted writing. And he echoes other writers in saying that human ghostwriters provide better quality and service.
Ghostwriters are better, Gundu concludes, especially if “you need high-quality content that is tailored to your specific needs” rather than a large amount of content done quickly.
AI can be more effective with some types of writing, like blogs or news reports that deal with concrete data points. But for writing that needs understanding, like editorials, AI naturally falls short.
The Final Word
Artificial intelligence is just that: artificial.
It simply cannot achieve nuances of feeling, understanding, and context in the content it generates, no matter how much data is uploaded. It is, in my experience, capable of basic things: outlining or even creating rough drafts.
I’m not going to ask AI to write my autobiography, though.
If a prospective author is not especially adept at writing, they can ask for help from a ghostwriter. And a ghostwriter will provide all the nuance and experience necessary to bring their story to life.
Of course, any author or writer can ask for help from AI; they just shouldn’t go overboard and depend on that help. Relying on text from AI gets you underwhelming results, but even those results could be valuable if they are worked over by a human being—an authentic intelligence. Using that kind of process will get you more authentic results.
Need a social media ad? Maybe a quick blog? Sure, ask AI—but don’t expect it to do all the work for you; you’ll have to edit. But if you’re set on writing something longer, a piece that really connects with readers and conveys feeling, you need to employ a living writer. As Lee Barnatham says, you get what you pay for.
In today’s market, you can hire an individual ghostwriter or even a ghostwriting company. Either way, you’ll find professional support. AI serves, at best, as part of the means to an end, but never as an end in itself. If you are a corporate entity looking for content, don’t just throw prompts into an AI and hope for the best. Instead, make the investment and hire a ghostwriter. Your readers will likely thank you.
