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COULD HUMBLEDOLLAR be replaced by a website chock-full of articles created using artificial intelligence? The short answer: It would be remarkably easy—and I fear readers wouldn’t object, especially if they didn’t know how the articles were generated.
To show what’s possible, I requested eight personal-finance articles from three freely available artificial intelligence (AI) tools, ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Microsoft’s Copilot. The first of those articles is published today, with the other seven appearing over the next four days.
The most onerous part was coming up with topics for the eight articles—and, trust me, it wasn’t exactly heavy-lifting. In fact, the mischievous part of me rather enjoyed it. I did no editing on the resulting articles beyond some formatting changes and a few slight tweaks to fit HumbleDollar’s style, such as turning “healthcare” into “health care.” None of this took much time. Indeed, if I didn’t take too many bathroom breaks, I figure I could have created and scheduled an entire month’s worth of articles in a single day.
Is there a personal-finance site that already does this? I don’t know. Should we be concerned about the possibility? In the articles I requested, I didn’t see any obviously wrong financial information.
Instead, I have a different concern: These AI engines are more than happy to create fabricated stories. Take a look at today’s article. I cooked up the whole stuck-in-an-elevator-with-Jack-Bogle scenario in my head, and the AI engines took the notion and ran with it.
Regular readers will know that HumbleDollar articles are frequently built around the financial experiences of the site’s writers. As I often tell contributors, “You may not be a personal-finance expert, but you are an expert on your own life.” Now, however, it seems we can substitute fiction for real-life experience. Should we be bothered? I am. But I may be in a minority. In fact, I love the Jack-in-the-elevator story. I just wish it were true.
When I started playing around with the AI engines, I toyed with having them generate a dozen articles, and then running them over the course of a week using fictitious bylines, to see if anybody would notice. I even considered creating a new contributor, and posting regular articles by him or her, to see if readers caught on.
But I didn’t do this—because I consider it unethical to pass off machine-written articles as penned by humans. Still, I suspect I could have got away with it.
I found that ChatGPT and Google Gemini were more likely to spit out the sort of articles that HumbleDollar publishes, while Microsoft Copilot resisted the personal journalism that this site is known for. That explains why just one of the eight articles you’ll see in the days ahead comes from Copilot.
Is there a role for AI in personal-finance journalism? I could see using AI to generate the first draft of articles, which would then be scrubbed to remove inaccurate or fictitious information. But I think good ethics would necessitate disclosing that the article’s first draft was created using AI.
Ethics aside, are there any drawbacks to AI-generated articles? The writing style leaves a little to be desired, but I’m probably pickier than most.
In fact, I’ve tried using all three engines to “lightly edit” a few of the less polished article submissions I’ve received. I was most happy with the output from ChatGPT. Even then, in the “light” editing process, the writer’s voice tends to disappear.
Is AI some sort of existential threat? It doesn’t strike me that way. It’s a tool—one that’s new and hence generating lots of debate, but which will soon be as commonplace as cellphones and Alexa devices. Still, in my little world of personal-finance writing, AI undoubtedly offers the chance to behave badly. Humans being humans, I’m entirely confident that this temptation will prove irresistible to some.
Jonathan Clements is the founder and editor of HumbleDollar. Follow him on X @ClementsMoney and on Facebook, and check out his earlier articles.
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This discussion reminds me of 1981. This is when I graduated with a Computer Science degree and was an IT developer for over 30 years. IT gets better over the years and AI will get better too, just wait and see, and when it gets better, it will be fast and replace humans too.
HD has great contributors, but many sites, articles and opinions have been regurgitating for years for bait and click.
As a professor of Management Information Systems, I teach and write about when to use AI. My current thinking is that it comes down to motivation, both the motivation of the producer, and the motivation of the consumer.
Here, and as we’re seeing clearly with the generative AI articles Jonathan is posting this week, generative AI is producing articles that are “more like a brochure” and, for us regulars to HD, boring, because they lack the infusion of human foibles.
If Jonathan just wanted to save time writing articles (one end of the producer’s motivation scale), then generative AI is a good idea FOR HIM. But if he (and others) want to tell a personal story infused with it’s inevitable personal issues (the other end of the producer’s scale) then articles need to be actually written.
On the consumer axis, am I just looking for information? If so, generative AI is pretty good, and the articles Jonathan is posting might get it done pretty well. But most of us here at Humble Dollar are not just here for information. We are here to learn. We are here to hear about the human struggle. For that, we need to hear from other humans.
We are starting to ask AI to create. I think this is a misuse of AI. Capt. Kirk is a better example of how to use AI. He would ask the computer for information to help in the decision making process. The computer did not make decisions nor do I remember James asking the computer to create.
AI is learning from data sets made available. By analyzing all Humble Dollar articles it can certainly simulate a typical article. It would have trouble with creating new personal experiences, which are unique. With time and more data sets, even this gap will be bridged.
I can see a digital twin of Jonathan Clements well trained to write articles, do video interviews and podcasts while he is sipping wine at a beach in Florida. That day is not far off.
Hopefully AI will create Bitcoin that we can donate to Humble Dollar to maintain Jonathan on that beach in Florida.
For my digital twin, I’d recommend a moderately priced New Zealand sauvignon blanc.
I’m no expert on AI, but having just returned from a 2 week road trip in northern calif (visiting the redwoods) it occurs to me that currently AI is a bit like the driving assistance technology on my 2019 car. Very useful when used by someone who understands it’s limitations, but actually of negative value when used inappropriately or with unrealistic expectations.
AI doesn’t have any skin in the game. It obviously lacks personal touch and a sense of reality. It’s OK for looking up the current treatments for lymphoma or how do I change the impossible spark plugs on my Subaru boxer engine but without humans providing their true life stories its dead information. I fear AI might be taken for real life reality one day and conflicts started over computer generated words. I’m not sure how that will all be filtered in the future, but the use of AI and TV generated figures speaking as real life is scary. Keep HD real with human input stories.