Technical writing has undergone a dramatic transformation over the past few decades, evolving from manual processes to today’s online systems. We all love a tool that takes the monotony and stress out of our work, and for technical writers, AI-powered tools look like a gift from Heaven. But is there a downside?
We think the pros outweigh the cons. Here’s why:
The Evolution of Technical Writing
They say the ancient Egyptians kept notes of their construction techniques, and we could argue that this qualified as technical writing. But the occasional stone tablet here and there is nothing compared to the plethora of instruction manuals, guidebooks, and helpdesks we see today.
Technical writing clearly entered a different realm with the rise of mass production and consumerism in the 20th century, aided by printing presses and typewriters.
The next major leap in the creation of technical content was led by the arrival of word processors in the 1980s. Prior to these machines, editors made changes by physically cutting strips of text out of a paper page and gluing alternative strips in the same location. Word processors retained the language of cutting and pasting but now use keyboard commands to rearrange text blocks almost instantly.
The internet then enabled content teams to centralize articles, images and reports in a content management system (CMS), allowing multiple team members to access, copy and manipulate the information. Extensible Markup Language (XML) then gave writers a way to label content types, so they could be stored, classified and pulled out for reuse in any kind of document.
In the first decade of this century, the CMS migrated from a local, wired system to an internet-based system–the cloud–retaining the same concept of shareable assets but now with better security, extra reach, and much lighter costs.
Smartphones greatly amplified the scope for online services, driving huge growth in the volume of technical content required to support platforms, apps and web-tools. Also, competition for page views forced any company with an internet presence to tailor its content for specific user types and ensure that it satisfied their queries, in other words, meeting user experience (UX) expectations.
So, we now have hundreds of thousands of companies creating online services, all racing to get their product out before the competition. If they can speed up any part of the content creation process, they will, especially repetitive tasks like copying and pasting the same text blocks.
AI tools can do just that, and can take care of many other aspects of content writing productivity and publishing.
Current Capabilities of AI in Technical Writing
We believe most writers are interested in fitting AI into their content creation routine (which is why you’re reading this article!). So, how many ways are there to do this?
We see two main areas where AI transforms the writer’s work process: Automation of repetitive tasks and enhanced content creation, both of which can be broken down into multiple aspects.
1. Automation
- Content Generation: Anyone who’s heard of ChatGPT will know that AI can now generate basic drafts of technical documentation, such as summaries, descriptions, or simple instructions. This frees up writers to focus on higher-level tasks like analysis, complex problem-solving, and user experience design.
- Editing and Proofreading: AI tools to correct grammatical errors and stylistic inconsistencies are now built into the most popular document writing platforms, both online and offline. They give writers a free hand to be as creative as they wish, safe in the knowledge that their ideas can later be reworked into text that is easier to read. This also allows writers to dedicate more time to refining the content for better user engagement.
- Formatting and Layout: AI can automate formatting tasks, such as creating tables and lists or applying predetermined styles. Consistent layout and adherence to style guides contribute to user experience because readers can navigate more effectively through each document, helping them find what they want.
Enhanced Content
- Information Retrieval and Summarization: Companies accumulate reams of product information from the various teams involved in development. That’s a lot to process, but AI can quickly analyze it, extracting key insights and summarizing complex technical details. This helps writers gather information more efficiently and logically, ensuring that they avoid passages that waste the reader’s time.
- Content Optimization: AI tools for technical writing can analyze content for readability, accessibility, and SEO value, as well as recommendations for improvement. This ensures that documentation is user-friendly and easily discoverable.
- Personalization: The same content may need to be modified for different user roles, accounting for their past interactions and preferences. AI can be trained to understand those needs, guiding writers in targeting documentation for multiple use cases.
The Evolving Role of the Technical Writer
AI can augment content creators’ existing technical writing skills, but also creates instances in which writers will need to develop new competencies.
In the former case, AI can reinforce their ability as content strategists, for example, by analyzing user data and suggesting content structures that resonate with target audiences. Simultaneously, AI improves the writer’s role as an information architect by automatically tagging and organizing content for both human readers and machine processing. Furthermore, AI aids writers in becoming user experience experts by providing insights into readability, accessibility, and overall user engagement.
As for new skill sets, an important consideration is to recognize when AI is being helpful and when it isn’t. For example, AI tools are famed for repeating standard phrases and structures, making the content appear artificial, and they have been known to incorporate factually incorrect information in their output, referred to as "hallucinations." A key part of mastering AI-powered tools and platforms is understanding their limitations and how to effectively integrate them into the workflow.
Also, with AI generating data-driven insights about content performance and user behavior, writers have had to learn their own data analysis and interpretation skills. They need to know how to assess the reliability of the data the AI system is using and to verify the accuracy of its output.
This means another area of learning is "prompt engineering," which involves crafting precise instructions to guide AI in generating desired outputs. Moreover, a keen awareness of ethical considerations and bias detection is necessary to ensure that AI-generated content is inclusive and free from discriminatory language.
The Ethical Considerations of Using AI in Technical Writing
We can go into much greater detail about the ethical concerns of using AI for technical content, since it’s a disruptive technology that promises change in several areas:
1. Bias and Discrimination
AI models are trained on vast datasets pulled from the internet, which may reflect the biases of those who are more apt to comment online. This can lead to AI-generated content that is colored by political preferences, perpetuates social stereotypes, or excludes certain groups. Your team will need someone dedicated to curating the training data, but they too can use AI bias detection tools to do so.
2. Job Displacement
Since the purpose of AI is to automate the more tedious and repetitive writing tasks, there is a fear that it could lead to job displacement for some technical writers. However, as mentioned above, the same tools give writers the opportunity to upskill and reskill in new areas, such as content strategy or information architecture.
3. Privacy and Data Security
AI tools don’t necessarily know whether the facts and figures they compile could reveal sensitive details of unsuspecting individuals or organizations. Not everyone has PR teams vetting the information they publish. This issue can be mitigated by using secure AI platforms and anonymizing any data that could be construed as potentially sensitive. Again, there are AI tools on the market that are designed to ensure compliance with data privacy regulations.
4. Intellectual Property Rights
Companies copyright information because they know it will appear in the public domain, which is just where AI tools will read it. These tools can be trained to identify copyright symbols, watermarks, and other protective measures, but they struggle with subjective and nuanced concepts like "substantial similarity" and "originality," so it’s easy for copyrighted material to slip through the net. Companies should equip their writers with tools that can follow guidelines on intellectual property, but they have to be prepared to seek legal advice when necessary.
5. Transparency and Disclosure
The buzzword of our times is ‘misinformation,’ and internet users don’t take kindly to being strung along by evidently fake content that is presented as genuine. However, AI-generated memes are often shared partly because they are artificial. AI content is a valid option as long as it is labeled as such, and is trusted even more if your disclaimer mentions the actual tools and processes used.
The Role of AI in Knowledge Management
Technical writing is focused on the presentation and usefulness of content, fashioning an end product from the raw material that is information. But not just any information - companies need to carefully curate the information that is relevant to their operation, and they do so with knowledge management tools.
Here too, AI can play an important role in organizing, storing, and sharing the pool of knowledge that technical writers draw on. The key functions in this respect include:
- Knowledge discovery: Extracting insights from vast amounts of data, identifying patterns and relationships, and prioritizing them in terms of value to the end user.
- Content categorization and tagging: Automatically organizing and classifying knowledge assets for easy retrieval or reference.
- Search: The easy retrieval mentioned in the last point is as helpful to the AI system as it is to human searchers. It’s one of the factors that helps AI tools compile and write content accurately and rapidly.
- Chatbots and virtual assistants: Instant access to the knowledge library means your AI system can answer user queries in real time.
- Knowledge graphs: Human search and discovery are greatly improved when we can visualize the relationships between concepts, ideas, and entities in our knowledge library, much like a mind map. AI excels at recognizing these connections and can rapidly guide users from one piece of relevant information to the next.
The Place of Human Writers in an AI World
Even with the rapid advancement of AI in writing and content creation, human technical writers retain unique values that are difficult to replicate. Chief among our qualities is the capacity for creativity and originality, because humans are wired to make imaginative connections.
Much of our motivation in life is due to emotional responses, and in the case of writing we have an innate desire to connect with audiences on a personal level and build relationships.
Imagination and emotional connection go together to help us craft compelling narratives that will be remembered because they resonate with the reader.
Although we lean on computers and AI to analyze the elements of a problem, we probably still have the upper hand in critical thinking and solving complex problems that require nuanced understanding or contextual awareness.
And while AI machines have to be instructed to learn, we have a natural thirst for understanding. This makes humans highly adaptable to new technologies and tools, which often are the basis of new skills.
Technical writers can maximize this value by specializing in niche areas where human expertise is highly valued and by honing their creative skills. Everyone has their preferred method of stimulating creativity, but popular and proven options are:
- Taking breaks: Giving your mind space to think about something different
- Going for walks: Exposure to nature has a calming effect, releasing your mind from the dense problems of the office.
- Consuming culture: Movies, music, painting, and literature can all take you to another world. They can plant ideas in your unconscious mind that might help you view work problems from a different angle.
- Socializing: As above, but the real thing! Reality is stranger than fiction. Who knows what amazing tales and adventures lurk in your colleagues’ back-stories.
- Keeping a journal: Once you sit down to write, that’s when the inputs from the preceding activities pop up, possibly triggering ideas you can use at work
Is AI the Missing Piece in Your Routine?
Now that we’ve laid to rest any fears of AI forcing you out of a job, you’re probably wondering where AI could fit into your own production process. Enter Etto, Heretto’s revolutionary AI Copilot. Designed to work seamlessly within our platform, Etto brings intelligence and efficiency to every stage of content creation. From lightning-fast documentation creation and guideline adherence to content consistency and error detection, Etto ensures your workflow is smarter, faster, and more effective. Ready to see Etto in action? Schedule a demo today and experience the future of content creation!
