Tried AI writing tools: Why they’re super helpful

I challenged the AI ​​with my articles and books! Who do you think won?

At GameStar, writing an article is still real manual work. People sit here every day and type articles that then appear on the website. The fact that this sentence has to be mentioned at all has to do with the rapid development of AI tools in recent months.

But what if, in the near or distant future, the human author is replaced by an AI? How would it sound if an AI wrote my article?

We don’t want to publish entire AI-generated articles for purely legal reasons, but there are enough tools out there to help you with spelling and especially style – and it sounds quite inhuman at times.

Not only will I run parts of an article of mine through DeepL Write and LanguageTool, but also use passages from my books to see what the computer there knows how to improve.

Of course, it is also interesting to know: Are the two programs any good in everyday life? Let’s find out.

Maxe lives for writing. Ten years of experience in various editorial offices speak for him. In his free time, he also works as an author and editor and writes the manuscripts for his podcast “Reading and Reading Let”. So he hasn’t just been spooning up alphabet soup since yesterday.

Since AI became really socially acceptable in late autumn 2022, many have dealt with artificial intelligence. Pictures about Midjourney made the rounds and quite a few tried to be an author, with ChatGPT as a ghostwriter.

What is clear: Letting an AI write a whole book doesn’t work. At least not if you have quality standards.

It doesn’t have to be, because artificial intelligence can also have a supportive effect.

This is where DeepL Write and LanguageTool come into play.

This is what the two programs do: They check grammar, spelling and style. This includes not only the correct spelling of words, but also punctuation and capitalization.

The best: DeepL Write and LanguageTool even make style suggestions and reformulate entire text passages. I particularly praised these features in my article about the best writing software money can buy:

There are even browser extensions for LanguageTool, it is available as a plugin for writing programs such as Word and LibreOffice, and it also works with Google Docs. What’s not to love?

The possible applications are manifold, not only for editors. You can confidently have business e-mails, contracts or longer social media posts checked and corrected with just a few clicks.

How much does the fun cost? You can use the basic version just like that. They already remove the worst blunders from the texts. If you want more in-depth help, you pay just under 7 euros a month for the LanguageTool annual package. DeepL Write is currently in beta and available for free.

As an example, we take my most read article: A simple trick on how to increase the picture quality of your TV.

I chase the following passage through the two programs:

LanguageTool doesn’t find any obvious errors at first – so far, so good. I stand up rephrase and the AI ​​spits out the following alternatives for me.

Left in the picture: the original text. LanguageTool’s suggestions for improvement can be found on the right.

Small, subtle differences that do not noticeably improve the reading experience. The second suggestion is actually wrong, boo. And what does DeepL Write say about it?

DeepL also has my original on the left and the alternative of the AI ​​on the right.

That makes a person out of the readers. How come becomes Why, but the sentence after that sounds better than mine. For this, DeepL hits me with a doublet in the last sentence.

Well, neither of them covered themselves in glory, DeepL comes out on top on the first try. I deliberately make a few mistakes in the passage and ask the two of them again.

DeepL Write corrects all spelling mistakes and commas without any problems. The AI ​​even irons out the je desto sentence, which is often misspelled colloquially, very practically. LanguageTool pulls along, but it doesn’t find the double je-desto sentence, which is a pity. Another point for DeepL.

The two examples show one thing: The AI ​​doesn’t get much out of an already good text. For important documents, which should absolutely be error-free, or as a style support, if you are unsure, you can feed the tools.

We could take this game further and run through the tools bit by bit, but I’ll leave that to you. I’ll try something else.

Before a book is finished and you can buy it in the store, it goes through several stages such as editing and proofreading. They pay attention to substantive, stylistic and grammatical blunders.

The crux: They’re damn expensive. Together, both shell out over 2,000 euros for a conventional novel.

Couldn’t that be saved thanks to AI? Let’s try it.

I will use the following passage from my second book silk fingers hunt through DeepL Write and LanguageTool:

With LanguageTool you notice that it is reaching its limits because, at least in the free version, it only reformulates things sentence by sentence. Sometimes the connection is lost:

March into a martyrdom that is a martyrdom for the whole city? The editor marks that.

DeepL Write doesn’t know how to get much out of the writing either (except for a braggart that made me chuckle):

It was kind of… sobering. Admittedly, I write fantasy and the passage of text was formulated in a rather pompous manner.

I gave the AI ​​a slightly simpler text from my first book Gelbauge given to process and here both AIs agree: Xantha has probably lost her calm.

Obviously the bots don’t know how to use dictums, so caution is advised here. But what I like: DeepL Write tries to simplify the text as much as possible. What fails with proper names certainly helps if you think too complicated when writing. By the way, by clicking on the green text you can also fine-tune if a formulation sounds too clumsy.

Perhaps the two AIs are not made for authors after all – at least not if the language is not too commonplace.

Conclusion

In addition to the examples mentioned in the article, I fed the two AIs even more texts, both from articles and books. For me, the conclusion is sobering: The AIs don’t know much about my writing style and my grammar.

However, I also write every day, be it professionally or privately, and learned it from scratch. My style is solid, my spelling is secure. Therefore, I see the advantage more for users who are unsure themselves.

Above all, DeepL Write convinced me. It has already delivered good results in its beta phase. Of course, you can’t let the braggarts stand and you always have to check your texts twice, but the programs are always sufficient for formulating a cover letter for an application or pimping up the style of an e-mail.

And if I do have a knot in my brain, I will not refrain from having the AI ​​clean over individual paragraphs, both for articles and books. Then it can only get better.

My colleague Sören has also written a book – and had ChatGPT copy it. The result is surprising:

Use AIs in everyday life, you will find a number of articles on GameStar Tech alone. This can be quite useful, even if the bots are far from perfect. Could you imagine having entire texts written by AIs? Do you think we editors and authors will eventually be superfluous? Or is there no computer that can match human creativity?