There’s a swelling refrain in opposition to AI-generated content material on LinkedIn and elsewhere. As Oxide Computing CTO Bryan Cantrill opines, “Holy hell, the [AI] writing sucks.” Now, Cantrill is understood for having robust opinions, however he’s not incorrect when he argues this AI-generated writing is “stylistically grating.” The most important inform? “Em-dashes that a few of us use naturally—however most don’t (or shouldn’t).” OpenAI founder Sam Altman simply fastened this final annoyance, however not earlier than many people realized that in our makes an attempt to make our lives simpler by way of AI, we inadvertently made everybody else’s lives worse.
It’s time to get again to writing that expresses ourselves, not merely what an LLM thinks sounds plausibly near ourselves, as a result of it’s the human in us that makes our communication compelling to different people.
Cozying as much as the robotic voice
This pattern towards robotic voice isn’t new. Should you’ve ever visited the UK or just learn a UK paper on-line, you’ll know that UK newspapers have distinctive voices. It’s not merely that totally different papers have totally different political biases and put on these biases proudly (or sanctimoniously, within the case of The Guardian) on their sleeves. Fairly, they’re emphatically opinionated. Within the US, we attempt to fake we’re taking a impartial stance, even when the info we select to disregard or skew reveal our political biases fairly clearly. As Emily Bell writes, “British journalism is quicker, sloppier, wittier, much less well-resourced and extra venal, aggressive, direct, and blunt than a lot of the US oeuvre.” (Sure, it’s an article from The Guardian when “oeuvre” is casually used as if regular folks speak like that.)
