write your own thoughts

Recently, I’ve been seeing so much AI output (‘slop’) populating my feeds that I felt compelled to write a post on it, as it ties in with the reason I started writing in the first place. It’s everywhere: LinkedIn, X or, heck, even Instagram and YouTube nowadays. On some platforms there is a big push against this kind of content. While I’m generally an AI optimist, I do agree: some people are taking it too far.

I use AI basically every day at my job, building a help center, writing release notes, answering support tickets; it is an immensely powerful tool. But a lot of people are using it in places where doing the work yourself is part of the value. Often without a second thought, they use it to generate output that requires creativity. Take LinkedIn: the amount of AI-generated posts sometimes feels like half my feed. The worst thing is, a lot of people, even those posting, are completely unaware how obviously AI-generated their posts read.

Some people don’t even seem to recognize the classic AI cadences, when something is “load-bearing” or when “it’s not just x, it’s y”. But even outside of those, for someone working with AI daily, it is generally easy to tell if something has been generated by AI. Is it inherently a problem? No, but the way that AI transfers information is generally unpleasant. It is often overly verbose and uses unconventional vocabulary. That’s why many X users tried to incorporate ASD-STE100 into their system prompt a few weeks ago, a controlled natural language developed by the aerospace industry. Not the best way to go about it.

It is better to train yourself to write independently and actually think about what you’re writing. Is it okay to use AI to proofread or to fact-check information? Of course! But you can’t let your voice be lost in the endless slop machine. Forming and expressing the argument should still be you. Writing is thinking, and if you force yourself to articulate an idea, you will find that there might be things wrong with it, you will inject it with your experience, and you will make it yours.

AI making writing easier does not mean you should use it to write whole articles for you, to post as you. Develop your own voice. There is already an infinite amount of text available. What’s valuable is the part that could only have come from you.