I’ve been quietly working on my other blog for #the100dayproject. Today I got knocked off my chair while adding a new paragraph when I was presented with two new Jetpack block options:
AI Image (Experimental) This block gives you an image prompt or you can enter your own and it will generate a small selection of images based on that prompt. Once you select the image you want, it’s inserted in the Editor and the image is uploaded to your site’s Media Library, like any other image.
AI Paragraph (Experimental) This blocks “reads” your current post content and generates text based on that content. Once inserted, you’ll need to change it to a regular Paragraph block in order to edit the content.
The blog post that I wrote dealt with research I’m doing on the projects I’m considering for my 100 day project this year.
Here are the results of these two new experimental blocks:
Being “experimental” makes me wonder how long-lived these blocks are.
Update 3 February 2023:
While there was no official announcement on the News Blog about the introduction of these experimental blocks, there is a post in the Community Forums from WordPress.com staff, Artur Piszek. Make sure to read all his posts in that thread and add your feedback there.
Disperser took a deep-dive and is tackling the very bristly subject of AI generated content in a series of opinionated posts which are well-worth reading. So far he’s published:
- About AIs-Part 1: Background Stuff
- About AIs-Part 2: What’s the problem?
- ChatGPT Part 1: ChatGPT As The Information Path
- ChatGPT Part 2: ChatGPT For Creative Endeavors
Even with all the hype fascination and interest around AI generated content, these new blocks might be useful, but are they really a good thing for bloggers?
As always, the information in this post is correct as of publication date. Changes are inevitable.
New here? I love writing about my experiences and experiments on WordPress.com and if that’s something you’re interested in too, why not subscribe? (You can unsubscribe in one click.)
WPcomMaven 
My guess? . . . ‘experimental’ might mean ‘being trained by bloggers’ until it’s good enough to charge for it. I suspect this will eventually be a paid feature. I could be wrong, of course.
It could also be a way to ‘train’ users in the art of generating content just for the sake of posting something without offering value.
This is part of what I mean by “devaluing”.
Am I interested in following a blog whose content is generated by an AI? Unlikely.
The reasons I follow blogs are to learn and interact. Secondarily, for entertainment. But my decision to follow is highly influenced by the person behind the blog and not so much about the subject.
Meaning a person can be knowledgeable about something or share my interests, but if there are aspects of their character I don’t like, I won’t follow (or stop following shortly after I start).
In the case of an AI, there’s literally no one to follow, and they have nothing to offer . . . they’re a bit like automated pundits, giving you what they think you want to hear.
. . . sadly, I think many bloggers (and readers) might like that.
AI is everywhere these days. It also arrived in Google Search Console (experimentally) in the shape of “Content Ideas” but it doesn’t write the content for you.
In order for the AI block here to generate content, it has to “read” (maybe understand?) your current post/page content. So junk in, junk out, I’d think. Another thing, content is much more than just words, it’s also tone and style. I’m very curious now about how it will deal with other writing forms. What surprised me about the AI content on that post is that it did, in this case, add extra value to what I was already writing. It will be interesting to see where these experimental blocks end up going.
I agree that I follow a blog because the person behind the content also interests me. And I don’t think that can be replaced by AI, but with ChatGPT, who knows?
How would you feel if you found out you were conversing and reading content you thought was the person’s but ended up being mostly AI-generated?
If that were all it was, of course I would feel disillusioned and disappointed. *But* if the AI generated content were used as a springboard for thought and enrichment by a human author, that would be a different thing.
We’re human and there are those who would likely give the AI stuff free reign and others who would use it to spark their own creativity. In other words, it depends on how we choose to use it.
And I do think I know your feelings about the human race in general. 😉
I agree that I don’t care what tools people use to do what they do (I have an excrement-load worth of processing tools for my photos).
And, yes, my feelings about humanity (the unwashed hordes as opposed to the quality designation) are fairly self-evident.
That does not apply to individuals, and that’s where it gets tricky.
I see aspects of AI similar to those of Instagram. If it becomes widespread, I see AI being used to present me with a fake version of someone, whereas I’m more interested in the real version.
I bet the first enthusiastic users of AI will be current or wannabe “influencers”.
“My guess? . . . ‘experimental’ might mean ‘being trained by bloggers’ until it’s good enough to charge for it. I suspect this will eventually be a paid feature. I could be wrong, of course. ”
Well, well… https://wordpress.com/forums/topic/jetpack-ai/#post-3913997
And I’ll just leave this here https://theconversation.com/chatgpt-dall-e-2-and-the-collapse-of-the-creative-process-196461
Thanks for the link. They echo some of my thoughts (and some don’t).
I follow a blog for content. I must be interested in the content; otherwise, why waste my time reading it? If the person behind the blog is also interesting, then it’s a bonus. However, I’d still follow a blog and read the content if I discovered AI was writing it and the content was interesting. I do wonder about engagement, though. Would any comments go unanswered?
I think these new blocks are interesting. Given all the recent news about ChatGPT, I’m interested in finding out more about it. I haven’t looked into it yet, but now you have informed me about these new blocks, I’ll certainly take a look, Jen.
I’m glad you found this post useful, Hugh, and I’ll be interested in hearing your thoughts once you try it out.
The introduction of AI here is rather curious to me (whether as a paid service or not) because it’s been my understanding for all these years that the WordPress.com ToS didn’t permit such content. Well, maybe like Reblogs, it will just be included in the new paradigm without much fuss.
(Edited by Author)
I do wonder if AI will damage blogging, Jen. I’ve been reading a lot about it over the last few days, and it was a subject on last night’s Question Time on the BBC.
I believe some bloggers are already using AI. I know of one blogger who used to blog once a week but now publishes one or two posts daily. Now I am questioning if AI has generated those posts. Each post is at least 500 words long, so where has he suddenly found the time to write and publish 60+ posts monthly?
I’ve also quickly looked at the AI blocks and tried them out on a draft post. But I need to look into them further.
What a great subject to start a discussion on.
I have no doubt that bloggers are already using it and a tool like AI could be used in a detrimental way; it’s the blogger’s choice whether and how to use the tool. (Again, Reblogs come to mind here.)
“…so where has he suddenly found the time to write and publish 60+ posts monthly?” If it were me, I’d leave a comment and ask, but that could be cheeky/chutzpah. There are other possibilities other than AI generated content. But is the content interesting? Does it engage the reader?
I’ve been playing with these two new blocks and am drafting a post about them and ChatGPT, Jen.
I’m interested in what they do, although WordPress says they can remove them at any time. I wouldn’t use the AI Image block at the moment, but the Pargraph block has a possibility.
I can’t see how bloggers can draft a whole post out of them, but the paragraph block could certainly be helpful. I certainly don’t feel as uneasy as I did about using them.
I look forward to reading your thoughts, Hugh.
Hugh’s thoughts and comments from his community of readers can be found here
Well, this was *really* unexpected! 😎 @photomatt tweeted my post https://twitter.com/photomatt/status/1623426953456898050 which others picked up and tweeted or retweeted and then WPTavern picked it up https://wptavern.com/wordpress-com-is-testing-ai-generated-images-and-content Thank you all!
The only thing I wonder about, if you’re looking for feedback on even an experimental feature, wouldn’t you get more feedback if you announced it somewhere official? 🤷♀️