If you’ve paid much attention to recent headlines, you’ve undoubtedly come across countless articles talking about ChatGPT and AI content generation. Some companies have already started replacing workers with the AI tool, in many instances claiming that it is helping them save money.

For someone trying to run their own website, this can make AI seem like an appealing option. After all, regularly creating new content is a well-known best practice for improving your SEO rankings and drawing more traffic to your site. With AI, you could conceivably create that new content in just a few minutes.

But of course, the reality isn’t so rosy. In fact, if you want your website content to actually achieve its end goals, you should be staying far away from AI.

Getting the Facts Wrong

As more people have dived into AI content over the last few weeks, a few key problems have consistently stood out.

First is AI’s tendency to spout completely made up information as factual truth — often going so far as to cite made-up sources to “prove” its point. For example, in a recent test by FiveThirtyEight, a ChatGPT article produced a stat that it claimed was from a 2021 Pew Research survey indicating that 71 percent of Americans believed AI advancements were generally a good thing.

When the journalists from FiveThirtyEight researched this claim, they couldn’t find the Pew Survey — and after reaching out to Pew, Pew’s own team had no idea where the stat or question came from. In reality, the journalists later found a Pew survey that indicated most people were concerned or distrustful of AI.

No matter what your company’s niche, your website should serve as a chance to display that you are a real expert in your industry. With AI frequently getting even basic facts wrong, it wouldn’t take long for customers to decide you don’t know what you’re talking about. It can be incredibly hard to make up for lost credibility. 

The Dangers of Plagiarism

AI’s tendency to plagiarize is another key issue that should keep you from wanting to rely on tools like ChatGPT. While much of the plagiarism-related focus has been on students using the tool to write their essays, this is far from the only area where plagiarism becomes an issue.

For website owners, AI plagiarism can come into play when a tool like ChatGPT copies text from another article word for word, and includes it in your “original” content without making any kind of attribution. Researchers have found that these tools also have a tendency to use paraphrasing and “idea plagiarism,” even when not copying content verbatim.

Not giving proper attribution for creative content could lead to legal issues with the original creators. At the very least, it can harm your SEO rankings, since Google frowns upon duplicate content. It doesn’t matter if you’re unaware that AI committed plagiarism. You’d still have to deal with the negative consequences.

Create Content That Matters

While AI can potentially be useful with helping you outline your content, fully relying on it to produce content for your website could prove to be a major mistake. Factual errors and plagiarism could make you look lazy and dishonest — the exact opposite of what you want your content to accomplish. 

Yes, writing content yourself (or hiring another person to help) may require more time and money, but the end results will be far better for you and your audience.