Back in high school, I used to write a lot of crazy (sometimes funny, sometimes dark) essays and stories in my advanced writing classes. When it came time to write an academic paper, my teacher failed the paper because he assumed I had plagiarized the whole thing.
I had to stay after class and prove to him on the spot that I could really write professionally and academically, not just creatively.
This is how it feels to be a professional writer in the AI era. I swear to god, I was over-using em-dashes way before the likes of Chat GPT. Large Language Models pinched my style, not the other way around, man.
So now, when authentic videos are made, or an authentic blog post is written, the AI-fatigued audience immediately questions “which AI” was used to make it. It sucks being a creative at this point in history. So here’s a palate-cleansing, strictly human blog post to remind you of the old days.
And Honestly? You're not as Sick of AI Writing as I am yet, Probably
I get the temptation, I really do. Clients looking to save a buck will use AI to write their copy because it feels “good enough” to them. Even worse, actual writers will use AI to write for them, because they’ve gotten lazy and sloppy, and quite frankly, have forgotten the simple joy of sitting down and creating something. We’re all in a hurry. We want to crank out content and don’t care how it comes off when we’re trying to save time and money.
But that gets you in trouble really quickly with clients who care and an audience who is already bombarded by slop content. Even before AI, if your messaging wasn’t special, you didn’t stand a chance of sticking out. So why do you think generic content is a good idea now? I promise you that your AI slop content isn’t converting a soul.
It’s not just AI fatigue that makes me sick of it all. It’s the loss of an art form. It’s the loss of the ability to do the thing that really separates us from machines. Connecting to humans, expressing what it’s like to be a human — all of that goes away the more and more we rely on recycled material from a robot that will never be cursed to exist in the cesspool of emotion that we drown in as humans on a daily basis.
The Evolution of AI Crutch Words
Early on, the telltale signs of AI writing seemed more obvious, didn’t they? Not too many humans casually slip “furthermore” and “step into a world of ….” in casual writing. Everything seemed genuinely robotic and stiff. It was easy to call out.
Now, even though it’s a bit harder, and our AI companions have gotten more “human,” there are still some easy ways to sniff it out. For some reason, Chat GPT LOVES using the word “honestly” to reinforce that what you’re saying or thinking is valid.
Chat also loves telling us what things “aren’t” when it’s trying to write copy. It’s not a distraction. It’s a different way of communication. Or so the bot would say…
Part of my writing style that professors and teachers have always criticized is that I tend to ramble, veer slightly off topic, and infuse nonsensical interjections into spots that might distract the reader. But now I tend to lean even harder into that because it separates me from the machines. Chat hallucinates sometimes and misremembers things, and flat-out tells lies from time to time. But there’s no mechanized replacement for the stream of consciousness that my rotting brain floats down when I get in creative mode.
The Best Writing Comes From Experience, Still
AI assistants and LLMs can assimilate information into a large borg of data that allows them to come off as nearly human.
But the only way to truly connect with a human in a meaningful way is to be human. AI will never know heartbreak. It will never understand the sheer joy of watching a poorly supervised toddler trip over something in a quiet public space and fall on his face. It will never taste a hamburger, experience the depression of getting too fat from hamburgers, or bask in the glow of fitting back into your “real people pants” after going on a diet to lose all that hamburger weight.
The Sad Truth of AI's Popularity
Pretty much every job requires some knowledge of AI these days. But this isn’t the reason AI is popular, and it definitely isn’t the reason why AI is going to be hard to get rid of.
We’re experiencing one of the saddest, loneliest times in modern human history. Social Media, technology, and the way society changed post-COVID have made it rare and unique for people to be as comfortable as previous generations were with face-to-face communication. I get it — people suck. Who wants to talk to anyone?
But at the same time, interpersonal communication and face-to-face meetings are more of the skills that we’re slowly losing. AI helps bridge that gap by providing you with companionship, advice, and, most frequently, validation. Over 70% of the reasons people use AI are personal. So you’ve got this trusted “friend” who helps you with other parts of your life, why not have it help you make music, or write stories, or create recipes?
Don’t tell the government this, but using AI for decisions that affect millions of people’s lives isn’t a great idea yet.
And using AI to write content that needs to connect deeply with a human audience is still a devastatingly bad idea.
Creating shows, commercials, and other videos with AI is fun and can lead to some pretty entertaining results. But content that doesn’t connect with an audience is a waste of time and money for everyone.
I am writing all of this not to convince anyone that they should trust me, or trust my agency with their creative, because of the human-first approach we take. Really, this isn’t an indirect sales pitch. The truth is, I just miss writing. I miss reading and consuming human content. I miss actually relating to something, instead of pointing out the signs of AI present in the content.
It's not About Being 'Anti-AI'
It’s narrow-minded to be “anti” AI for everything. But creatives have an extremely valid concern with the AI content that’s been presented as “real.”
I use AI every day for tech support, analyzing marketing data, troubleshooting, and poking holes in my ideas. I use it to construct processes and help inspire me when my old-man brain isn’t firing on all cylinders.
Once in a while — not often — I use my AI assistant to rant about AI, because my sense of irony is something that will never be matched by any machine.
Now off to the gym to sweat off a hamburger in a car whose technology would have been impossible to imagine in the 1890s while listening to music that would have gotten me arrested in the 1950s.
