5 AI Content Mishaps from Professional Creators
Being a content creator in the age of AI isn’t for the weak. Or the lazy. As a creator and an early adopter of AI in content creation, I’ve discovered two things:
AI content mishaps happen.
You need to be on your toes and know what you’re doing to avoid them.
AI isn’t an end-all solution. It’s not a replacement for human expertise. And it certainly isn’t immune to error.
Let’s dive into the world of AI mishaps as shared by five professional content creators. Including myself. Seriously, your job is safe.
AI's Wine List Misstep
Transcription Tool's Character Limit
AI's Incorrect Beekeeping Info
AI Grammar-Checker's Context Error
A Lack of Nuance is a Dead Giveaway
AI's Wine List Misstep
AI seems like it would be a handy helper,, but the truth is nothing can replace people with deep knowledge and understanding about wine.
“I had asked AI to help me create a wine list, curious if it could do a good job,” shares freelance writer Michele Gargiulo at Sommsation. “I specified I wanted options inspired by Italian food. It recommended a Sangiovese, several other wines, and a Chianti.”
Sounds good, right?
“When I asked if it was aware that Sangiovese was the grape in Chianti, it apologized and chose another wine. If I had no knowledge of wine, I would not have known and would have put both wines on my menu.”
This is a great example that AI is not infallible. Creators using AI still need to know what they’re talking about and be able to work with the outputs provided by the AI tool. This story highlights one of my initial fears of AI being used to spread misinformation, either knowingly or unknowingly.
Lesson learned: Fact-check everything. And I mean everything. If there are inaccuracies, that’s on AI. But if you publish those inaccuracies or use them to make decisions, that’s on you.
Transcription Tool's Character Limit
One of AI’s claims to fame is its ability to absorb some of the manual-intensive tasks so human creators can do more with their time. Turns out, there’s a limit as to how much AI tools can accommodate at one time.
“I recorded a bunch of hour-long interviews with podcast guests and gave the transcript to AI to create podcast show notes,” saysMadhav Bhandari, Head of Marketing at Early Stage Marketing. “Turns out that AI cannot accept over 4,000 characters input in a prompt. It keeps throwing an error if you do.”
Honestly, I thought AI had the ability to crunch massive amounts of data at once. And maybe some tools can. But not when it comes to transcript creation.
“So, you need to read through the transcript and break it into multiple parts so each prompt has fewer than 4,000 characters. For the future, I'd just record shorter interviews to save my time. Or, I would break the transcript into multiple parts right after the interview.”
Lesson learned: Don’t count on AI as an end-all admin solution—it’s just not there yet. It’s a bit overhyped at the moment, but hopefully it will one day live up to our expectations.
AI's Incorrect Beekeeping Info
“I'm not an expert on bees, but I wanted to write an article on how to keep them as it was trending in the data I had,” explains Steven Wright, Co-Founder and Chief Editor at Lifestyle to the MAX. “I used AI to provide me with some information on hives and bee types in the UK, and took the information as accurate.”
Fatal mistake. As mentioned above, always fact-check!
“After rewriting and publishing the article, I reached out to some beekeeping associations for their thoughts. What they came back with is that my article was actually focused on the United States versus the United Kingdom. The learning for me was that you absolutely have to fact-check information that comes from AI, and sometimes it's better to just write the article from scratch yourself with your own research.
Lesson learned: AI cannot replace human expertise. Remember, it’s a language model, not a search engine. Its intel is limited, so you need to be able to separate fact from fiction.
AI Grammar-Checker's Context Error
Grammar (especially in the English language) is a finicky thing that, when not used correctly, can change the entire meaning of your words.
“I relied on an AI grammar-checker to polish an important article,” shares Aysu Erkan, Marketing Manager at Oh My Luck. “It ended up changing a critical sentence to such an extent that it altered the message I was trying to convey. The client wasn't happy.”
Sounds like a classic case of trying to “work smarter, not harder,” which can sometimes create more work.
“I learned the hard way. Always double-check AI suggestions within the context of the entire piece. Next time, I'd use the AI tool as an assistant rather than a replacement for my own proofreading skills.”
Lesson learned: Don’t lean too heavily on AI. If a client has hired you because of your expertise, they deserve to get the full benefit of your expertise.
A Lack of Nuance is a Dead Giveaway
I’ve got 99 problems with AI, and here’s one. While working on an editing project for a client who is openly using AI to generate 99% of their content, I noticed very small errors that make a big impact on how the content sounds.
Here’s an example:
“You may have the time of your life at [insert restaurant name here].”
Hm. That sounds like AI is giving me permission to have fun, not assuring me that I’ll have a great experience.
Here’s how I edited that phrase:
“You will have the time of your life at [insert restaurant name here].”
See the difference?
There’s not much of one in terms of editing. I only changed one word.
But that one word sounds more human and accurate than what AI delivered.
Fine nuances like these are dead giveaways that you’re reading AI content (or content that isn’t written by a native speaker).
Lesson learned: AI simply can’t replicate human speech all the time. You need a strong command of the language to catch inconsistencies and deliver the right meaning.
Learn from These AI Content Mishaps
Is AI perfect? Of course not.
Will I keep using AI in content creation? Absolutely.
Content creators need to realize that AI has a time and place. Just like us humans, AI has its own strengths and weaknesses. The key is to learn its limitations and not become fully dependent on it.
It’s a tool, not a done-for-you solution. And you’ll get better results when you know how to use that tool correctly.