another rant on AI

This newsletter isn’t just about my interests. It’s about the details of what it’s like to be human.

Coffee isn’t only a drink—it’s a powerful connector between people. 

YALL FUCK THIS. I HATE THIS. PLEASE STOP WITH THE AI SLOP.

If I could break out in hives over reading something, writing this essay’s opening would have me soaking in a tub of tomato juice or whatever you use to alleviate AI-induced hives. But for the record, I did write those sentences. 

This sentence structure is so, so prevalent that the instant I read it, I am uncontrollably pissed off. I’m so mad at it that I’ve started reviewing some of my latest posts to rewrite anything that remotely resembles it. It’s not this, it’s that. (or vice versa) 

Among many things that worry me about generative AI, developing writing skills is one of the big ones, right along with environmental destruction and losing critical thinking skills. If you cannot sum up a short article without relying on AI to do it (critical reading skills), if you can’t answer interview questions without AI rewriting everything, if you don’t take the time to develop a writing voice…are you at least touching grass? Enjoying life? Basking in all that extra time AI freed up for you while the creative part of your brain atrophies?

The most infuriating thing about using AI slop in marketing is that the whole point of marketing is to STAND OUT. Be unique. You know, set yourself apart from everyone else. Trusting an AI to write copy or social media posts with no edits makes you like every other brand/person who is also doing that. AI does not have a unique voice, full stop. I don’t care how much of your stuff you feed into it; the outputs will not sound like you. It has no soul or personality; it says a lot of things with a lot of words, but somehow with no meaning at all. 

When I read Stuart Heritage’s rant on this stylistic structure, I thought, holy shit, I’m not the only one who is living this hell. 

Everywhere I look, there it is. Whenever I hate myself enough to scroll through Facebook’s wilderness of algorithmically suggested posts, I find myself being smacked in the face with sentences such as: “Self-improvement isn’t a trend, it’s a lifestyle shift,” and “The small wins aren’t just moments, they’re the majority of your life.” Once you notice it, it becomes impossible to ignore. This weekend during a Peloton class (I know, shut up), I heard an instructor bark a variation of “this isn’t X, it’s Y”. Yesterday, a character did the same during a TV show I was reviewing, and I dropped a star from its score in retaliation.

I hear this structure sometimes in my meditation app, which then of course, accomplishes the opposite of what meditation is supposed to do. I read it in someone’s press quote in an article. I read it constantly from an account about anxiety—it used to have great ideas and advice, and now I’m ready to unfollow because it gives me anxiety. I read it WAY too many times on LinkedIn’s feed, across thought leader posts about how a jog resembled this unique lesson only they have learned, reshares of how AI solves all of the company’s problems, even among the text-only posts, “I went into the office and saw this. But it wasn’t that. It was another thing that’s slightly better than that. And it changed everything I know about some other thing.”

Sometimes the sentences are separated, sometimes they’re mashed together, sometimes they’re back-to-back with other known AI stylistic structures, and I’m here to tell you that with even more people using AI to write, your human voice and connection will be the thing that sets you apart. The part that people find difficult and want to skip entirely is voice development. Much like any other skill you work on, it is painful and it can/does suck. There is no substitute for writing, rewriting, editing, questioning everything, and lighting your computer on fire.

Do people still read things? If you’re using AI to summarize an AI article and send it via an email written by AI…and the receiver uses AI to summarize and reply…we’re in a race to the bottom of a very bad, poorly written, and rotten barrel. 

But wait, it’s not a barrel. It’s the pit of consequences that eats up everything human. 

(Once you know about the structure, you see it everywhere, and perhaps with more knowledge and attention on it, people will at least edit the slop.)