Humans have a natural bias for human-generated content. Why? Does this bias ultimately serve them? Using AI as a collaborator to aid the authoring process can be tricky. Clarifying your stance on the value of AI will help you move from a default position of fear to a collaborative approach in using AI appropriately and effectively.

Let’s face it. People are afraid AI will replace their jobs, and there’s no question that AI is a gamechanger in many industries. The use of AI-generated content across all media domains is becoming common. “Deepfakes” on social media are one dark example of AI-generated creative content. AI-generated celebrity voices are another. Concern about AI replacing human pursuits is real but is it as bad as they say? The problem is that humans are just at the beginning of their journey to determine how to use AI appropriately and responsibility. In this article, I will examine potential reasons why people value human created content more and solutions to balance AI and human generated content.

• Examples of human bias towards AI
• The value of artistic struggle
• The philosophy of AI
• AI doesn’t play fair
• How to balance human and agentic work

Examples of human bias towards AI

I had an interesting conversation with a group of AI experts who are working on a book. One of the criticisms of the book was that it appeared a large part of it was written by AI and some in the group didn’t like that. The inference was that AI-written content is inferior to human-written content. But is it?

As another example, several months ago, there was a story about Michael Caine selling the rights to use his voice likeness to Elevenlabs for an audio recording of the Odyssey. Elevenlabs received significant pushback from early consumers that the voice was too mechanical, without emotion, and other criticisms. I thought the voice was pretty good, so listen for yourself and make your own judgement.

Objectively, AI-generated content might be better than human-generated content, but humans have started to unconsciously discriminate against it. As the talk reverted to “markers of AI” and “AI slop”, it was apparent that many in the group were trying to label the material as “AI-authored” in order to discount it. Interesting. Why do people judge human writing as something that is more valuable? Does philosophy offer an answer to the bias for greater effort?

The value of artistic struggle: TIME

Two thoughts occurred to me. First, value is subjective. It is defined by the consumer and subject to change with context. So in the case of a written product, the consumer would be the reader. My small sample of contributors (probably not a representative sample) were inferring that the value of the AI-authored material was less. Indeed, I saw the same “markers” they did – the repetitive prepositional phrasing, the consistent tone and structure, formulaic transitions (i.e., In summary…) and suspiciously clean but slightly “off” language. But the content of the material was logical, ordered, and clear, in many ways, much clearer than something I would write. Of course, these “faults” in the text can be controlled with clear and complete style prompts to keep AI in check. So a skilled AI consumer could mitigate many of these issues. Even so, all or part of the material would be AI-generated. It seemed the bias was more about the manner the material was created, not the material itself. Something else was at work here.

The philosophy of AI

The second thought was that this phenomenological bias for human-created text probably had been addressed by a philosopher somewhere along the way. So I asked AI if there were applicable philosophical constructs.

People tend to value human-written work more because they see effort, intention, and a conscious inner life behind it, and they treat those “behind-the-scenes” features as part of what they are really buying or engaging with—not just the surface text. In philosophy, this connects to a cluster of ideas: effort-based value (the “effort heuristic”), theories of achievement, and views like Kant’s that locate value in rational agency and good will rather than just in outcomes.

AI on Us

There is empirical support for this. Several studies report that when the same or similar output is labeled “AI” instead of “human,” people report it as less creative, less labor-intensive, and less valuable, even if they admit the quality is comparable. In art experiments, participants valued works labeled as AI-generated up to 60% less than those labeled as human-made, mainly because they associated human works with more labor, passion, and a personal narrative (Bellaiche et al., 2023).

Aristotle describes a flourishing life as exercising excellences of character and intellect through activity over time—habits, training, and deliberate practice. From this perspective, written products are valuable not just as an object but as the visible tip of a long iceberg of cultivated character, judgment, and practical wisdom. AI can produce similar products, but it does not live the journey of excellences. Is this the soul? Is the ether of our soul the sum of the experiences and struggles we have in this life?

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AI doesn’t play fair

Another truth I’ve realized about using AI is that my time is valuable. AI doesn’t operate in time like humans do (was Einstein right?). And this is its main advantage. The “cost” of AI is measured in tokens, not minutes. What a wonderful tool to reduce the human time it takes me to research a topic from days to hours. That seems to me to be valuable use of my time – assuming that what I consume is not too overly biased or incomplete – a big assumption.

As for myself, for technical writing, I follow the 20-60-20 advice. I spend 20% of my time in prompt engineering so I’ll get a good result. Let AI do 60% of the heavy lifting. Then edit and polish for 20% of my writing. The net result is that I’m much faster and more productive than I used to be. So is everybody else. So is it worth it?

If we treat an AI model as a drafting tool—like a very powerful thesaurus or research assistant—but hold ourselves to high standards of judgment, originality, and ethical responsibility, what part of the book’s value really depends on the keystrokes being human?” That keeps the focus on the message and on the genuinely human intellectual work, rather than on a purity test at the sentence level.

AI on Us

I couldn’t disagree more. At the end of the day, there is something about my fingers flying over the keyboard as I write this sentence that gives me a sense of pride that I wrote this – not some soulless machine. And so it comes down to this. People value human-generated content more because of the time and effort it takes to create it. Call it creative suffering, the artistic soul, or whatever you want. The only difference is time, really. AI doesn’t operate within human time. This leaves us with two choices. We can see AI generated content for what it is – a transformational tool that gives us back the most precious resource humans have. Or we can view AI as a usurper, stealing the glory of our artistic blood, sweat, and tears and therefore less than us. Here’s the truth – AI is a tool. And humans can create more with AI than without.

How to Balance Human and Agentic Work

Considering all of this, here’s a set of considerations to guide authors in appropriate collaboration with AI.

Humans do the thinking

“AI slop” is most often a function of “human slop.” Vague prompts produce vague responses. You have to know what you’re doing before approaching AI, otherwise, you risk Narcissus’ mirror. AI will simply tell you what you want to hear.

Before ever entering a prompt, write down the purpose and general structure of your piece. If you use AI to mine for ideas, don’t expect the responses to be useable. Do your own thinking and use AI to confirm or contradict your ideas.

AI does the heaving lifting

AI doesn’t operate within time as humans do. Since our time is more valuable, AI should be used to do the monotonous tasks such as research, proofing, editing, and evaluating. Follow the 20-60-20 model. This creates a collaboration, not a crutch.

Don’t compete

Don’t try to write like AI. Let your own voice shine through. If you like to tell stories, tell them. If you like to use emotional words, do it.

Nothing goes out without being reviewed

It goes without saying that you shouldn’t copy and paste AI generated content into anything, unless there is a specific reason to do so (such as some of the “AI on Us” examples above). When you do, make sure the reader knows what is created by AI and what is created by you.

For my own process, I may read AI answers, but always author those ideas tempered with my own and within the context of my article. Context is the great marker of human vs. agentic authored content. Make sure you are the sole author contextually.

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Bibliography

Bellaiche, L., Shahi, R., Turpin, M. H., Ragnhildstveit, A., Sprockett, S., Barr, N., Christensen, A., & Seli, P. (2023). Humans versus AI: whether and why we prefer human-created compared to AI-created artwork. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 8, 42. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-023-00499-6