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AI; Didn't Read...

Hi everyone,

Every Saturday morning, I open up my MacBook after breakfast and write out these emails. If I planned ahead, I could probably write them on Thursday or Friday, but the week always seems to get away on me...

Based on the newsletters and emails I'm subscribed to, an increasing number of people are using GenAI to write their weekly emails. I suppose it saves a little time, and maybe makes the planning and scheduling a little easier, but I think there's a problem with that approach which those authors aren't anticipating enough.

AI;DR.

If you've been on this blog for a while you'll know that I use GenAI in many ways, and in my writing process I frequently use LLMs to tidy up audio transcripts of drafts. Some writers I know use GenAI in sophisticated ways: they're certainly not just copy/pasting raw ChatGPT output into their emails.

Unfortunately, it might not matter. Readers are getting to the point where even the suggestion of AI content—a "delve" here, an em dash there, a "rule of three structure"—makes their eyes glaze over. I just crammed three AI tells into the last sentence, for anyone keeping score.

Even if you're a writer who actually enjoys using an em dash—which, by the way, is option+shift+- on a Mac—there's a feeling that for now, it's best to avoid them...

In this week's article, I explore the AI;DR phenomenon, and suggest that it's as much about trust as it is about quality. I'm certainly guilty of sliding away from a piece of writing the moment my brain registers what I consider an "AI tell", and even if I know and respect the author, it can make me trust them a little less.

Is it fair? Probably not. So, what are we going to do about it?

Read AI;DR: When Readers Stop Trusting Writers on the blog

If You Know, You Know: Free eBook

Hundreds of you already downloaded the free eBook, based on the IYKYK series of posts from the blog.

The series explores why we need to lift our "mental ceiling" on what AI is and how it works.

The key idea from the series is this: Anything that happens on a computer happens in code. LLM-based AI can write and run its own code. Therefore, it follows that a sufficiently capable AI can perform many tasks that a computer can do.

If you didn't get the free eBook yet, it now has a permanent home on the website:

Head to https://leonfurze.com/iykyk/ and download the book

I didn't use GenAI to write this email... but should it matter if I did? And if an author uses AI, what's the limit on how it gets used before the reader starts to lose trust? Do you find yourself thinking AI;DR the moment you suspect AI text?

Hit reply to this email and let me know your thoughts—I'm always interested to hear from readers!

Cheers,

Leon

PS: There are five em dashes in this email. I think I've started using them more just out of spite.

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