Is AI writing about to choke us?

AI is already transforming how many of us write. But evidence is beginning to emerge that it may also be harming our organisations in a way that could be hard to undo.

The tech definitely has the potential to be a huge help for hard-pressed knowledge workers, who spend much of their time typing text on a screen. The only trouble is, embracing it without due care risks dragging everyone backwards.

This is something we all need to talk about, whether we’re a complete AI convert or we think ChatGPT is the work of the Devil.

Superhuman colleagues

An awful lot of professionals now have direct access to AI in the apps they use for text-based communication – whether that’s Word, PowerPoint or Google Docs. Those little AI helper icons are getting harder to ignore.

No matter what we write at work, we’re now at the point where none of us can afford to pretend this is not happening.

This is true even if you have no intention of using these tools, because it will still be affecting what and how your colleagues or suppliers write.

Some people have already worked out how to get the best from AI writing assistants and are starting to pull away from the pack. Their productivity has shot up. They’re generating and sharing amazing ideas at a rate that no mere human could ever manage.

That’s where we should all be. But as far as I can tell, those people are in the minority.

Others are still giving it a very wide berth, as they believe real writing is something only an actual human can and should do. If you’re one of those people, I hear you.

In fact, that’s my view too. But I also know that AI can help us work smarter, not harder. That’s why I’m not ignoring it and neither should you. The key difference is that we still shouldn’t let it do the writing for us.

Which leads me to the third group of people – the ones causing that damage I mentioned.

All filler

I was recently speaking with a finance manager at a local authority in London. I’ve known him for a very long time, and he’s always recognised the power of the written word at work. This despite the fact that he’s always struggled with writing himself. (He’s dyslexic.)

He was explaining that he’s always been puzzled by how few documents his colleagues write, given that a good one can move mountains.

But a few months ago, around the time his team got Microsoft Copilot, that all started to change. Then many of those apparently reluctant business writers began churning out reports as fast as a laser printer on amphetamines.

The number of documents landing in his inbox quickly began to multiply. Yet it wasn’t long before he realised all was not well.

‘It’s weird,’ he told me. ‘At first glance, those documents look OK. They seem to be saying something worthwhile.

‘It’s only when you take a closer look that you notice all the pointless filler. In fact, sometimes it’s all filler. I often spend hours reading a long report only to realise that it’s saying nothing original.’

I recognised this issue from my own early experiments with ChatGPT. He’s describing what others have called ‘AI slop’ – a kind of digital stodge produced by people who want to write reports with no real effort.

 

 

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AI appeal

I can understand the temptation. They have probably always known that writing is important. The only reason they’ve avoided doing it until now is that writing is hard (especially as most people get no help to develop the skill once they leave formal education).

And then along come AI writing bots that seem to solve that problem in just a few short keystrokes.

Finally, those people can produce documents AND get on with the ‘real work’! (Never mind that writing is the real work.)

Human to human

The trouble is that in outsourcing the production of words on a screen, they’re also outsourcing their professional relationships.

Communication connects the thoughts of two humans. Remove either one and there is no communication.

I’ve warned plenty of times in these pages that turgid documents are the hidden curse of most sizeable organisations. They stop the flow of good ideas and squander the valuable time of operatives and top decision-makers alike.

Bad writing advice

As if Documentese weren’t a big enough problem on its own, writing bots can make matters far worse while insisting their advice is right.

Only this morning, for instance, Microsoft Copilot offered to improve this text in one of my PowerPoint slides:

Poor writing can jeopardise the future of an entire organisation.

Here’s what it suggested I write instead (with its changes in italics):

Inadequate writing has the potential to threaten the future success of an entire organisation.

Copilot’s version has 40 per cent more words than mine and 50 per cent more syllables. It’s also less direct and – I’d argue – lacks the punch of my original. Strictly speaking, it also has a different meaning.

What it definitely isn’t is more professional.

Choked by AI

In untrained hands, tools like Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT have the potential to produce AI slop on an industrial scale. It could easily choke the companies we work for. But it will happen so silently that few will notice or feel a thing – until it’s too late.

But we can’t put the genie back in the bottle. And even if we could, we shouldn’t try.

Because AI does have the potential to make human writers much better. Remember those people I mentioned who know how to use it properly?

They’re not blindly outsourcing their writing to a bot. They’re using it to turbocharge their efforts.

They’ve worked out how to get AI to do the work of a dozen personal assistants who can work at lightning speed and never sleep. They realise that it can dramatically enhance their thinking, to help them come up with more of their own original ideas and solutions, for which they (rightly) take the credit.

They’ve discovered how to use it to free us from all the many blocks that stop us producing great documents, so we can communicate our thoughts and critical information in a way that other humans will read and act on.

This is stuff that the rest of us need to know too.

AI advantage

That’s why you’ll notice me including more in these pages about how to turn these AI tools to your advantage. Sometimes the whole article will be about how to get the best from AI. Other times, I’ll just integrate tips on using these tools to overcome the barriers that we all face when we write at work.

What I won’t ever recommend is that you hand over control to a bot.

I hope you’ll stay with me even if you are avoiding the lure of AI. Because you’ll almost certainly be working with people who already use it every day – for better or worse.

And we all need to be able to tell the difference.

Related course: Superhuman writing with AI: Power up your writing and work smarter, not harder.

Image created with Midjourney AI

Author: Rob Ashton

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Rob Ashton is the founder of Emphasis and posts mainly about writing and the brain – a topic he's been researching for seven years. You can read more of his work in Writing Matters – our weekly bulletin of career-building writing advice backed by science.