Smitten with What's Written
As much as I use AI at work every day I find its writing harder and harder to understand. The code? It usually makes enough sense to me and I can follow its logic. But my brain goes foggy when I read the LLM’s reply to me.
The same thing happens to me when I read a blog post or article with the hallmarks of AI. It always starts with me wondering if I’m misunderstanding something in the article and then it clicks, “Oh, this is AI content.”
AI writing is a disaster. It falls apart so quickly. While LLMs can produce grammatically correct text, their writing does not stay on topic and they frequently invent phrases that sound correct but have have no real meaning.
In spite of this, there is so much AI writing out there now. It is exhausting.
On The Curiosity Shop Brené Brown proposes that the grammatical correctness of AI writing is so appealing that people overlook the weak content it produces (emphasis my own):
I think with the advent of AI, people who struggle with written communication, persuasive written communication, the problem is they’re smitten with what’s written.
They are so smitten with the idea that they can hand off a work deliverable or anything that’s well written…because that’s new for them. Like, all of a sudden, this is this beautifully crafted thing that I can turn into someone when for 40 or 50 years, I have not been able to make something basically perfect.
In a work context, Brown’s idea resonates with me. Writing is difficult. English grammar is hard enough! Never mind connecting ideas and creating a coherent argument in text. People publish AI content because it has the veneer of good grammar. Who needs Strunk & White when you have an LLM!
I have long detested prescriptive rules for writing. I endured lectures on commas in English 101 and still don’t know how to use a comma. I see rules and freeze. How can I write if there are all these rules to follow?!
Ironically, Strunk & White is too relevant today:
Omit needless words.
Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that he make every word tell.
I Want to Read Human Words
It is almost cliché to say this today, but, I want to read human-written words. I really don’t care how polished human writing is. Especially in a work context. I want human thought process, rigour, taste, and decisions. I don’t want writing that’s been passed through an LLM and I absolutely don’t want an LLM to generate writing.