The Authentic Edge: Navigating your Path to Genuine Content Creation

For solopreneurs, content generation is a HUGE challenge. Overcoming this challenge should be tackled from the context of understanding how important your authentic voice is.

• Retain your credibility, identity, and reputation with authentic content
• Value lies in content that is original and authentic
• Write authentic copy to attract an authentic audience
• When used in a specific way, AI can be extremely empowering
• AI and plagiarism in academic work
• Two paths to mastering authentic AI-generated content
• Adhering to strict brand and personal identity requirements
• To wrap up

Solopreneurs are hard-pressed for time. There is a temptation to hand the task of content generation to AI.

Indeed, it's a slippery slope last but not least, because of the homogeneous (sameness) nature of AI-generated content. At best, sameness implies the loss of connection between the solopreneur’s voice and her content. Invariably, sameness will result in credibility, identity, and reputation loss.

Creating authentic and representative content is a key point of discussion. It is a key differentiator, even before the advent of generative AI. The discussion is now rooted squarely in the apparent ease Large Language Models (LLMs) have in generating content.

As relates to AI-generated content, the debate ranges quite a spectrum.

Ben Settle   holds a strong view of scepticism and cynicism. I refer to one of his daily emails, that carried the subject line; “Why AI is just the new cheap [redacted] knock-off of marketing.” Here he dismisses the [AI] hype as nothing more than an overblown fad preyed upon by the gullible. In his own words; “The gullible will eat it up (and they are) (Ben Settle, n.d.).”

He justifies this comment in the context of Christian Louboutin’s   shoes. His point is that these shoes are “…horrifyingly painful to wear. … And yet, these prohibitively expensive (they ain’t cheap), “feet-mangling” shoes sell out the same day they drop… (Ben Settle, n.d.)”

These designs are often copied, mass-produced and hawked off in a ”‘shoddy fashion.” In Ben’s words;

“And what is also not bizarre is those shoes don’t fetch nearly as much money.
If anything, they are balked at by the high-roller customers.
And they don’t make anywhere near the $50 million ol’ CL’s company gets last I checked.
The reason:
Nobody finds rip-offs as valuable as the real thing (Ben Settle, n.d.).”

The value lies in originality and authenticity.

Copy rooted in personality and character, reflecting the author's individuality, will attract an authentic audience. Like attracts like.

This article by Wilbur Greene   offers a rich discussion. The title and subtitle are brilliant, immediately capturing the tapestry of threads inherent in a discussion of this nature.

The Art of Authenticity: Why You Shouldn’t Rely on AI to Write Your Book
The Perils of AI-Generated Writing and the Timeless Value of Authenticity

The article is worth a read, however, I will give a few main headings and my one-line extract on each.

The Importance of Authenticity in Writing

“Authentic writing has a raw, unfiltered quality that resonates with readers (Greene, 2023). “ “Your voice is like your literary fingerprint, setting you apart from others in the field (Greene, 2023).”

The Risk of Losing Authenticity with AI

With AI-generated content; “..there’s a real risk of losing the very thing that makes your writing special — your authenticity (Greene, 2023).” “...in a world of AI-generated content, your authentic voice is what sets you apart (Greene, 2023).”

The Human Touch: Why It Matters

“When you read something that’s been crafted with care, with feeling, you can sense it (Greene, 2023).” “There’s something inherently powerful about words that come straight from the heart (Greene, 2023).”

I am not Ben Settle, no Wilbur Greene. Ben Settle is an accomplished and highly acclaimed World Builder. His career started as a copywriter, able to produce an insane amount of quality content in a short period.

Writing is difficult for me. I battle to get my ideas into words, stumbling and fumbling. I find AI a most useful tool to get through the ‘washing machine’ inherent in this process. Not as abdication, but one of empowerment and deep reflection.

When writing, remain connected to your idea

First off, have something to say.

“You don't write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say (F. Scott Fitzgerald).” 

As long as I remain connected to the ideas I am trying to express, I can recognize when the AI-suggested words are aligned. Words that resonate. At those times, I feel I am writing authentic copy. If that connection is not present, the writing feels false, it feels AI-generated.

Vanessa (2023), in her excellent article; The AI Writer's Dilemma: Maintaining Authenticity in an Automated Age, expresses this sentiment in the context of knowing what to say from the beginning.

“Firstly, I realized that in order to get the results I wanted, I had to know what I wanted to say in the first place. No matter how detailed my instructions were, the AI couldn't fully understand the emotion and intention behind my words. As a human, we have a deeper understanding of the meaning behind our words and the emotion we want to convey, but AI is limited to what it has learned from data and algorithms. It's important to keep in mind that AI can assist us in writing, but it's not a substitute for our own thoughts and feelings. In order to create authentic and engaging content, we need to have a clear understanding of our own ideas and perspectives (Vanessa, 2023).”

When used in a specific way, I find AI to be extremely empowering. My adoption of AI leads to a focus, bordering on obsession, that is, not to publish AI-generated copy unless it is authentic.  In writing this article, I am now leaning towards 'human-centric' copy. Copy that reflects a human process and not an AI one.

I find comfort in many who feel the same. There is plenty of literature on the subject. All the articles cited here touch on the subject of Authentic Voice.

Services like Grammarly  , Hemingway  , and Content Hacker   offer AI-based tools. These tools may generate more ‘human-like’ content. This is something to test. Numerous LLM-based copy generation tools are available, Copy.AI   and Writesonic   to name but two.

Detecting AI-generated content

Interestingly, the following two articles ranked high for the search terms I used to research this article. They are very comprehensive and seemingly informative. I [suspect] they are AI-generated. I tested them against several AI detection tools, all bar one gave a ‘Highly likely AI written’ score.

• The Importance of Authenticity in Your Blogging Voice - AIContentfy
• Impact of ai on content voice and authenticity - FasterCapital

I must add my disclaimer here. AI detection tools are not accurate. All AI detection tools acknowledge this. That said, AI-generated content tends to show certain characteristics. I ran both articles through Anthropic’s Claude Sonet model. I uploaded a text file copy of each article to Claude with the following prompt:

Prompt: Would you consider the content in the file to have been generated by AI?

To summarize, Claude had this to say (There are links to the full responses below):

The AIContentfy article:
‘Based on my analysis of the content, there are several factors that suggest it was likely generated by an AI language model:’

The FasterCapital article:
‘Yes, based on my analysis, there are several strong indicators that the content in the file "file.txt" was likely generated by an AI language model:’

Claude followed up with detailed comments on the following:

• Repetitive phrasing and concepts;
• Breadth over depth;
• Structured writing style;
• Use of subheadings;
• Lack of personal voice;
• Impersonal writing style;
• Obvious section headers;
• Contextual inconsistencies;
• Repetition of entire phrases

Links to Claude's full output:

1. Claude’s response to the AIContentfy article;
2. Claude’s response to the FasterCapital article.

The point here is that, at this time, Google does not discriminate against content that is AI-generated.

These articles rank high on organic search listings. They take a fraction of the time to produce and have a positive impact (at this time) on the performance of the websites.

All is well and good from a Return on Investment (ROI) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) perspective.

Yet my personal experience with the articles is different. I did not engage with the content. I became easily distracted and bored. I skimmed and rushed to the end. On realizing the content was in all likelihood AI-generated, I felt cheated. An element of mistrust arose.

For me, this experience results in a fundamental realization - tread very carefully with AI-generated content.

The importance of authenticity, as relates to plagiarism and originality in work, is prevalent in the academic world.

Wilbur Greene touches on this. In his article mentioned above, Greene touches on issues such as:

• Authorship - who owns the copyright;
• Plagiarism - an article that is partly written by AI, should that be considered as plagiarism;
• If AI-generated content is allowed in academic and professional settings, what does it say about how we value original thought?

I discovered Turnitin  . Headlines such as:
‘Empower students to do their best, original work’ and 
‘Safeguard academic integrity with an AI writing detection solution built for educators’ is the first seen on their home page.

Their product, iThenticate  , seems like one to watch. It detects text similarity and AI-generated content.

In the Teacher / Learner space, AVID   has embraced AI in the form of ‘Instructional AI’.

Using AI to: ‘... Help Every Student Develop Their Authentic Voice’

I remember my first personal encounter with the process implied here. It, partly motivated one of my first articles on AI — “Unlock [Unblock] your mind with ‘Genitive-AI’” .

There seem to be two obvious paths to mastering AI-generated content in your voice.

1. Subscribe to a service such as Content Hacker;
2. Stay free of dependency on third-party services and empower yourself. Master this skill yourself.

For a solopreneur, path 2 is potentially the wise choice. It is the path I am on.

Think about it.

To follow this path, I need a well-grounded understanding of the transferable principles of Prompt Engineering.

• Prompt Engineering — The ability to craft prompts that give consistent output that is useful and on-point.
• Transferable principles — principles common to all Large Language Models (LLMs).

In addition, to become competent with Generative Pre-Trained Transformers (GPTs) and related ecosystems. OpenAI Playground, Agents and Autonomous Agents, for example.

These tools are THE ESSENTIAL tools of a solopreneur in the AI age. Mastering these tools will enhance every aspect of solopreneur processes.

Here, knowledge and capacity compound exponentially. The more I understand, the more I do, the more I can do.

I have created GPTs designed to generate content in the voice and authenticity of the author. For my writing and select clients.

They are works in progress, and, as my understanding of this space grows, quite rudimentary. That said, they are already having a meaningful impact on production.

One boiler room has strict style, personal, and brand identity requirements. These are coupled with scepticism as to the validity of AI-generated content.

After two weeks of tweaking and testing, we can release an aligned and production-ready article in under an hour. This process, which I both understand and respect, typically takes weeks.

What is more encouraging, is the change in sentiment. The transition went from dubious mistrust [this is understated — horror perhaps] of adopting AI and AI-generated content, to open-minded consideration.

Generative AI provides a much-appreciated injection to my creative and life process. The power and potential of open-source LLM models grow exponentially with each new release. As new capacity is released, I anticipate a journey of discovery and empowerment. A journey that I will pursue to the best of my ability and ambition.

Here I will share an example of my editing process using ChatGPT. I am not a trained writer. I find ChatGPT helpful in debugging errors that Grammarly or Hemingway point out.

Prompt:

Is the following in active or passive voice?
"""
It is a challenge that has to be overcome, as it speaks to survival.
"""

Output:

Prompt:

Thank you. How would I write the entire sentence in active voice?

Output:

Prompt:

If the subject is a solopreneur? Then active voice is:
Solopreneurs must overcome this challenge, as it is crucial for survival.

Output:

Exactly, that's a great adaptation! By stating, "Solopreneurs must overcome this challenge, as it is crucial for survival," you've successfully transformed the sentence into active voice with "solopreneurs" as the subject who are actively taking the action. This makes the sentence more direct and engaging, clearly attributing the action to the solopreneurs.

Prompt:

The following is more my style. Please comment.
"""
Solopreneurs must overcome this challenge, as it speaks to survival.

Output:

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