Using AI to blog and write LinkedIn posts? With no to limited editing? I can tell.
When you use ChatGPT nearly every day to write there are a some tell tales signs, and as AI becomes more common place some writing really stands out. I’m on vacation right now and disconnecting (mostly) from reading “business writing”. AI writing, compared to John Steinbeck, becomes even more pronounced. The classics stand up well to ChatGPT!
Here’s some examples I often see. Disclaimer…AI is notoriously hard to detect. Services like GPTZero.me can be helpful, but never conclusive. Tread lightly.
Note the fragmented sentence joined by a comma in these examples. I find AI loves to write in this manner. I think, AI thinks, it is more conversational. Either way, bad AI writing seems to have a ton of sentences like this.
“In professional communication, the length of your message…”
“Every audience is unique, especially in the diverse…”
“In the realm of AI communication, the ability…”
Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Hemingway would roll over in his grave.
Something GPTZero.me does well is highlight humans write with “burstiness”. Our ideas are not relayed in consistent patterns. We get off track, write longer on thoughts we really like, can’t think of something to say so we write shorter. Posts with clear, formulaic, structure and length, have a good chance of being fully AI. Even with light editing, which all of us should do at a minimum, the formula morphs into more human writing.
Bing AI seems to love rhetorical questions, way more than any decent writer would ever use to convey ideas and concepts. (Just ask AI to not use rhetorical questions and you’re set.)
I find it so interesting that AI, at least in a business setting, likes to use similar words. Realm is one I find personally grating. Engaging, strategic, embark, emulate, and others have their place, but seem forced into writing.
AI seems to love to hyphenate words a ton, which makes AI seem like it is following grammatical rules EXACTLY as written, unlike humans trying to communicate well.
Anyways, to get back to vacation, here’s my hot tip. If you want to step away from reading business books, but can’t commit to the length of The Grapes of Wrath, look for short story compilations of great writers. You won’t feel bad if you can’t power through it and if you don’t like the story you can move on to the next one.
More to come as I see more examples.