You may have noticed a new logo next to my name on this article. It says 100% Human. This is a new initiative Tech Guide is a part of to show you that what you’re reading wasn’t generated by AI – it was written by a human.
It’s easy to generate content with AI but it’s not always accurate and the quality is questionable.
That’s why I, Tech Guide editor and 2GB, Ch 10 and Sky News tech expert, joined up with Val Quinn – Sunrise tech expert and editor of Gadget Guy, Trevor Long – Today show tech expert and editor of EFTM and Djuro Sen from Image Matrix Tech and Sky News, to start the 100% Human movement.
Trevor, Val and Djuro and I all run our own websites but we’re all still great mates and often see each other at events and on the same launch trips.
What started as a chat on one of those many tech trips about the rise of AI and how it could potentially affect our work, has turned into 100% Human.
For us, our opinion and our reviews are our currency.
That’s what distinguishes us from each other and other writers.
Me, Trevor, Val and Djuro are all independent publishers. We don’t have the footprint of the larger tech and news websites – but between us our opinions and views on technology are among the most sought after in Australia.
And we want to protect that.
We want to speak with one voice to protect our businesses and ensure our content is used fairly, accurately and valued in every sense of the word.
We put a lot of time and effort into not only using and reviewing products ourselves and spending a lot of time with them, but then also taking the time to write the actual review and create other content for our websites.
Readers trust us and, based on these reviews and our opinions, will spend sometimes thousands of dollars on a product we’ve just written about.
The fear for us is the ability for AI to scrape all our reviews on our respective websites to come up with a summary that bypasses the actual clicks on our stories.
So we feel the time has come for transparency when it comes to content in all its forms.
We are banding together to tell the world we’re not going to stand for AI algorithms cherry picking our articles without giving credit and compensation to the value it deserves.
That’s why we created 100% Human.
Seeing that logo on every article and on our websites means what you’re reading was created by human and is a real review, a real article written by a person for our loyal audience.
The use of AI is only going to get bigger, and it has its place. We are not by any means anti-AI.
But one thing we’re not going to do is take any shortcuts when it comes to writing our articles and reviews which are painstakingly put together.
This means they are accurate, trustworthy and reflect our opinion of a product we spent a lot of time and energy reviewing so that readers, viewers and listeners can make an informed decision when it comes time to spend their hard earned money.
Another guarantee of the 100% human logo is accuracy.
One thing we’ve noticed with AI generated content is that it can’t always be trusted as being factual and accurate. In fact, sometimes it’s just downright misinformation.
100% Human is here is to support human creators so when you see that badge you will instantly know two things – it is a high quality and accurate article and was written by a human being.
Another aspect of this campaign is to educate readers, viewers and listeners about the benefits and shortcomings of AI.
And we’re also calling for other publishers to get involved as well.
We believe this is an important step forward to ensure that what people are reading, listening to and watching still has the human touch.
And if it’s not – it must be clearly labelled as such.
We love technology and write and talk about it every day, but we don’t want to see technology robbing us of our livelihood and offering misinformation that could have a negative effect on our audience.
That’s why we proudly stand together to say we are human – 100% Human.