This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Hello and greetings. Welcome to Side Hustle School, Chris Guillebeau here. Today we have a question from Lucas in Vancouver, Canada. He is feeling the pressure from AI-generated content in his freelance writing, Side Hustle. As more businesses turn to AI tools for their content needs, Lucas is worried about losing clients or having to lower his rates to compete.
Or just how do you possibly keep up with an AI-generated tool that is available 24 hours a day and does pretty good work? Well, let's talk about it. In this episode, we'll explore how human writers, that would be real people, can differentiate themselves and showcase their unique value, even in the age of AI. We'll discuss strategies for niching down, offering additional services, building stronger client relationships, which is something that an AI cannot do, at least not in the same way, to ensure a profitable and sustainable business. So how do you do this?
How do you compete? Or how do you stand out? What do you do in this situation? Let's talk it out. Detailed question coming up after this quick shout out to our sponsor.
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Hi, my name is Lucas and I'm a freelance writer from Vancouver, Canada. I've been writing content for various clients for the past three years, but I'm starting to feel the pressure from AI-generated content. It seems more and more businesses are turning to AI tools to create their blog posts, articles, and website copy. I'm worried that I might lose clients or have to lower my rates to compete. How can I differentiate myself as a human writer and showcase the value I bring to the table?
Should I niche down, offer additional services, or focus on building stronger relationships with my clients? I want to ensure my writing side hustle remains profitable and sustainable in the age of AI. [Music]
So I went on book tour, I guess about six months ago or so. Well, sometime last year, went to a bunch of cities talking with readers about gonzo capitalism, my latest book. And what's so funny is I've noticed from book tour to book tour, there are certain questions that always come up.
Some of them are consistent across all the books, and some of them are related to the specific book or the specific season or just what's going on in the world. And last year, at pretty much every stop, somebody asked about AI. And sometimes the question is not even that specific. It's more just like, AI, question mark, what do you think? What do we do, right?
How do we use these tools or do we not use these tools or should we be afraid of them? And it's just clear that there's so much excitement and also anxiety around these kinds of tools. And what I always encourage people to think about, big picture is AI is a computer and it's a robot. It's a really high powered computer or robot, but ultimately it's not human. And humanity and AI are not at odds.
Like it's impossible for AI to replicate humanity. And I thought about it in the context of book tour 'cause I'd be like, here we are all talking in a room together, this is not AI. So as these tools become more sophisticated, it's natural to worry about the impact, especially on a business like freelance writing. And no doubt, some businesses like freelance writing are going to be affected and impacted. But that just means you need to emphasize your human touch, your humanity.
Ultimately AI needs to be supervised in some ways. There's already been lots of stories of businesses that are putting out AI content without really reviewing it. And then they get in trouble for various reasons because AI is not perfect and not ever going to be. And then the more you can upscale yourself and focus not just on writing certain articles, but what are other services you can provide? How are you ultimately going to help those clients, those businesses?
And it may be that you need to learn something different from the kind of freelance writing that you have been doing. Or maybe you can collaborate with AI. Instead of seeing it as a threat, think about how you could enhance your own writing process and efficiency. But ultimately I think it's wise to pay attention to things like this without necessarily becoming overly anxious about them. Ultimately, if a business fires a client, fires a freelance writing client because it thinks it can get something better from an AI model, that's not necessarily a client that you really want to have in the longterm anyway because their incentives are not really aligned with yours.
So I think overall, you keep honing your craft. You keep remaining curious. Think about your client's needs, how you can serve them. In the longterm, you're going to be just fine. But of course I know it's something that continues to evolve.
So we'll look at it as it continues to do so. I want to thank our caller, Lucas, for the question and everybody else out there for being part of this community. www.sidehustleschool.com is the website. Various case notes and such for each episode. And much more is on the way.
2,700 plus episodes now in the archives, always free. But you can subscribe and follow wherever you get your podcasts to come back for more. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
- From the Onward Project.
