If You’re Gonna Use ChatGPT For Everything, Then At Least Do This

/ Stuart Danker

The future of writing will mirror the fashion industry, in the sense that fast-fashion will still have its audience, but it’s the handmade items that will stand out.

It’s a pretty fitting analogy, seeing how humankind can never compete with machine-made. But that’s only if you take these factors into account: speed, accuracy, low cost.

Yet it is the long production time and imperfections that give bespoke items their value. And I’m optimistic that I will belong in this segment of the market when that time comes.

A plastic world

I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon once ChatGPT went mainstream. All of a sudden, friends who spoke English as a second language began crafting immaculate Instagram captions and work e-mails.

It may seem like they’re putting their best foot forward, but all they’re doing is presenting a fake mask, because I know for a fact they don’t speak like that.

I’m reminded of my time learning Russian through Rosetta Stone CDs. ‘Zdravstvuyte’ was touted as one of the more important greetings, to which I quickly showed off to my Kazakh friends.

I expected slow claps, maybe a standing ovation to my mastery of their language. But all my audience had to say was, “Dude, say ‘privet’ instead. It’s weird to use that other word with friends.”

And that’s exactly how I feel about my friends’ purple prose describing their Tuesday lunch.

The problem with ‘enhanced’ writing

Look, I don’t care if your plural for ‘cyclists’ is ‘cyclers’, or if you use ‘than’ in the place of ‘then’. But hiding behind the veil of AI makes you look like a phoney, even if you’re self-conscious about your grammar.

This is especially true if English isn’t your first language. I want all your errors, performed in earnest. I want to know that you have a message, and that you’re trying to convey it through your utmost capabilities.

I understand your struggle, too. I speak Mandarin with the vocabulary of a third-grader. Yet I would rather my message be “we do this because important” than to have a machine speak on my behalf with: “Given the significance of this situation, it is imperative that we set aside any distractions and focus our efforts on addressing this issue with the urgency it demands.”

Which brings us to today’s post. If you’re going to use AI in your written tasks, then perhaps I could give you some pointers on how to do it properly. Because I might as well be part of the solution, amirite?

Why you shouldn’t use AI

But before we get into the meat of the matter, I want to first discourage you from delegating your writing entirely to AI.

The most important reason is that it robs you of your growth. Remember my third-grader’s Chinese? Well, I used to have kindergartener’s Chinese. And the only reason I can handle basic communication today is because I’ve actually spoken it badly for years.

If you let AI speak for you, you’ll miss out on getting laughed at. On being told that it’s ‘you’re’ instead of ‘your’. It’s these exact moments that improve your skills just that tiny bit more. And tiny improvements over time will bestow you with the mastery you seek.

Second, communication is one of the most important skills we can cultivate. And relying on AI only atrophies that part of your brain. You will do yourself a disservice by being a bad communicator, even if your cooking, coding, or drawing skills are top-notch.

And finally, life is about the process. Everything from making your bed to producing your magnum opus lies in the journey that you’ve taken to get there. Sure, you could get AI to produce a sick guitar riff for you, but how accomplished would you feel as a musician if you did exactly that?

Here are the AI tips you seek

Okay, fine. You still want to AI everything. You’re not bound by expectations and you just want to cast your voice out into the world. If the written word is your medium of choice, and you’re headed to ChatGPT for a draft, then the first thing you should do is to…

Be accurate

AI has a way of writing a whole lot of nothing. It has a way of ‘showcasing its testament to excellence through its meticulous dedication to the craft’.

So filter all that AI slop down to its most basic ideas. In other words, be concrete. A watch’s bright dial may draw looks due to the way it catches light. But saying that it “pulls you in, not with a loud, obnoxious flourish, but with a quiet, deliberate, undeniable magnetism, a whisper of sophistication” is a bit of a stretch.

Cut em (dashes)

Em dashes have existed since the beginning of literature, but only in recent days have people been associating them with AI. I myself love em dashes. In fact, here are three of them in a row for you — — —.

But these armchair editors have a point. AI really does crank the em dash knob to a gazillion units per paragraph. After being subjected to torrents of em dashes by my writers, I can safely say that a lack of punctuation, Cormac McCarthy style, is looking rather refreshing about now.

I’m not saying you should eschew all forms of punctuation. I just want you to know that anything beyond the comma, period, and hyphen detracts significantly from the reading experience.

Keep evolving

Here are some words commonly associated with AI:

  • tapestry
  • meticulous
  • delve
  • craftsmanship
  • indelible

And here are phrases that do the same:

  • testament to its dedication to…
  • in a world of…
  • it isn’t just (blank), it’s (blank)

This is the current zeitgeist, at least until the AI models improve. And you may resist with a common excuse I hear a lot from my colleagues: “But I personally use those phrases and words in my writing!”

Well, if you’re serious about being a writer, you’ll find another way to phrase a sentence. Because there are always other ways to say something.

Just know that we know

As a smoker, I find it hard to watch an actor try to pass off as someone who goes through one pack a day. You can tell by the way they hold the cigarette that they’ve never smoked a day in their life.

It’s the same for writing. Anyone in a position to rewrite articles has developed a keen eye (and ear) when it comes to the writing voice. So if you’re a budding writer trying to sneak a machine-made story past your editor, just know that they know.

Personally, I can guess your writing voice just by listening to you speak, a skill I’m sure my fellow wordsmiths can attest to. It becomes more apparent if we’ve exchanged text messages.

So why not send in your own work to be improved on? At least you’ll know where to improve. You can’t enhance a story that didn’t emerge from your own mind, yanno?

Your writing is for you

You know what the weird thing is about writing? After more than a decade of doing this, I’m starting to realise that writing is actually more for me than for you.

It is a way of navigating the turmoil in my mind, of crystallising the vague ideas and putting them out into the universe. All the blog posts I’ve written here have taught me more about myself than they have enlightened others. Because let’s face it, I’m no Tony Robbins.

But if I write enough, I have a vague feeling that I could be. And I don’t think any convenience offered by AI will ever outweigh that.

41 thoughts on “If You’re Gonna Use ChatGPT For Everything, Then At Least Do This”

  1. Ah! I couldn’t agree more with what you said! I also think that writing something with AI flattens the tone and just takes out the personality of the person, which to me is one of the reasons why people read blogs too… I am also quite afraid of the future of humankind if everyone stops thinking and starts relying on AI to write everything for them. Are we gonna lose the ability to use our brains? Let’s see…

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  2. Your last point is especially important: where will we be as human beings when we lose the ability to put thoughts into words?
    I have no problem with A1 being used as a tool, much as google gathers material that would take days of research in a library, but when A1 short-circuits our actual thoughts, we have a problem.

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  4. On a lark, I asked AI to write a few paragraphs about a specific historical event, asking it to provide names and dates. The event, names and dates were already familiar to me.

    It spit out a few paragraph as I asked. Some of the information was incorrect. I then asked AI, “are you sure about this information you have provided me”.

    It then responded with an apology followed by updated information and wanted me to confirm this was to my satisfaction.

    —“I don’t trust these droids”.
    The Mandalorian

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  5. Yes! Thank you! Especially the part about brain atrophy…AI makes us dumber, lazier, less inclined to climb that mountain. Everyone just wants to be at the top without fully grasping what it takes to get there. On point, as always!

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  10. I use CHAT more instead of Google or any search engine…I don’t get a lot of links that tell me nothing, as for writing…..I have used it to get advice on writing a letter looking for sponsors…and then it’s more for advice than for the actual writing….

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  11. My last straw was asking a friend what she thought my daughter who turned 40 would like for her birthday since she’s hipper than me and I’m the fuddy or fuddle or fudeduie haha mom even tho we’re the same age and she sent me back a whole page saying AI says….. blah blah. I was like if I wanted to know what AI thought, I would have asked them! ☹️
    Thanks Stu!
    ❤️

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  12. I wholeheartedly agree that AI robs us of our growth, Stuart. When I look back at my early blog posts, I see how far I’ve come as a writer. And I got that way by honing my skills through good old-fashioned practice. I love the fast fashion analogy too! I truly believe there will always be a place for authentic voices.

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    • I do, too. And I believe that as time goes on, the authentic voice becomes more and more important. Too bad the people with the money don’t mind any voice at the moment, as long as it fills the page.

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  13. Some good points here! I’m a professional editor myself, and I definitely a LOT of the “it’s not [that], it’s [this]” and “not only/but also” phrasing. I am definitely an advocate for completely eschewing the use of AI when it comes to writing.

    However, I must disagree about completely removing punctuation like em dashes and certain words/phrases to avoid any risk of appearing AI. Em dashes are incredibly useful for setting pacing and tone, as are semicolons and colons. I work with business leaders who write thought leadership articles, and I recently had one ask for the em dashes to be removed simply because he feared this rumor, and he only had two in his whole article. That, to me, is much too high a level of editing paranoia for anyone to be required to deal with. And cutting out specific words entirely IS unfair to people who naturally use those words, especially in book settings where they are appropriate (like “tapestry” in historical fiction).

    I think the real key is to be conscious about not OVERUSING these things. Yes, if you have em dashes on every page and use flowery, complex language constantly, it will sound fake. But using them appropriately isn’t wrong. The Chicago Manual of Style just put out its 18th edition, and as far as I know, they still have a whole section on the proper use of em dashes. =)

    (Of course, I suppose there would be one benefit to everyone not using em dashes: Since AI just copies what WE do, it would eventually train itself to believe em dashes don’t even exist, bringing them back in vogue as a way to NOT appear AI! Technology is ridiculous.)

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    • Yup, my problem isn’t with the usage of those exact words or punctuation. But AI currently inserts them in the weirdest of places, for instance, when describing ice-cream flavours. It’s a nuanced conversation for sure!

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  14. I’ve never used AI before, but reading your blog has me tempted to see if I can write as though I’d taken from one.

    I don’t know why, but it sounds like such an interesting idea to me, as though there’s something I can understand from trying to.

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  15. Stuart, that is a great way to cover AI. And a caution we all need to hear. No need to be all about the “big word” count. Or the most intellectual presentation. The idea of a mask is disturbing. Could even our comments be AI generated? Machines composing and responding? And it’s the same machine on both ends. Humans, unite!

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    • I’m not surprised if some comments here were drafted by AI, because people use it for everything these days. I’ve once had a new acquaintance write me an e-mail through AI. It’ll be weird if they meet someone who also uses AI, where it’ll be machines speaking to each other in the end.

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  16. I do editing work for an online publication ad the amount of (very clearly) AI writing in our submission queue has become a tsunami. It’s annoying and dispiriting both. Feels disrespectful, tbh.

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    • Yep, especially because it’s currently very easy to see through (and you don’t need an app for that). Someone who doesn’t care about the written word will not be able to tell (both writers and people who are paying), and that’s where the frustration lies.

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  17. I did overhear a conversation about AI where results were compared to early Stephen King novels for the endless wordiness of them. The counter argument being, King delivered real human wordiness.

    I think AI will find a place. But you can’t AI humanity and writing with a heart beat, that requires a thinking and feeling writer. It is just a low quality imitation in that regard.

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  18. I love this. I use ChatGPT to enhance, tweak, or inspire, but not to write. ChatGPT might pick up on accidentally-added punctuation, but the “meat” of my articles is still mine.

    Thank you for your point about em dashes – there I was using hyphens and thinking I wasn’t writing properly. I think now, and with thanks to ChatGPT, I have some editing to do! I might ignore it’s (em)dashing suggestions in future 😉

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  19. I agree 100%. I’ve noticed a couple blogs that have suddenly become very verbose. It is not difficult to figure out that they have written their post using AI, and not all are ESL. I wonder what the point is. Why write a blog post when you don’t actually write it? I’ve stopped following most of these. Great piece Stuart, Maggie

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    • I think some of us are results-driven, which puts the focus on the finished product. It’s much harder to put the focus on the journey instead of the destination. It’s a constant battle trying to put this message out there, that’s for sure!

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  20. “This is especially true if English isn’t your first language. I want all your errors, performed in earnest. I want to know that you have a message, and that you’re trying to convey it through your utmost capabilities.”

    I know it was unintended, but I feel as if this specific line was written for me. I know that English is not my first language. I also know that I tend to make a lot of blunders, even though I run my blog posts (and story chapters) through Grammarly before putting them out. And yet, mistakes remain. Usually, people who come to read my stuff are fine with it, but professionals tend to judge me harshly for it. Maybe if I had a Chinese or English-like name, their judgement would be less harsh?

    It is true: I do write for myself. Because when I am no longer in this world, my writing will be the only proof that I existed. It is far better than a photo. I can’t see those, and they paint a static picture rather than show an evolving person who observed the world and wrote down their thoughts.

    Though it is called AI, it is not intelligent in its current form. The moment it starts to come up with ideas on its own (bad or good doesn’t matter), that is when we can call it true intelligence. Let them generate their articles and stories. I will write myself by typing on my keyboard because my audience is me first and foremost. Even though it sounds selfish as hell.

    I have used AI, but mostly as a code reviewer and to discuss the theory of something on which I am working on. Usually, they devolve into Socratic method, but I suspect majority don’t have the patience nor the energy for it. I find it is a good method to actually ask questions and formulate a plan that way, I doubt that Greek scholar would realize his methods being used like this thousands of years later.

    Nice to read a long post from you Stuart! It has been a while.

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    • Grammarly is a great tool indeed! Mostly because it allows you to choose how you want to deal with your errors, instead of rewriting everything completely. I try to embrace your style, of reminding myself that I am the first audience, but sometimes writing can feel like a performance, and I find it hard to get out of that mode.

      Anyway, lovely to be connecting again!

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  21. Refreshing look at the experience of reading/using AI. Like any tool it can be used or abused. I’ve had a play with it for fun and I find it flattens anything I write. I won’t be using it anytime soon. Personally, I like the unadulterated, mistake-laden, raw material my brain comes up with on its own.

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    • I’m sure AI will be formidable enough to emulate ‘soul’, given enough time. But I think about all the benefits I get from creating, and that helps me forgo the ‘results-based’ mindset that people have when using AI. Interesting times we live in!

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