AI Written Copy Just Won't Fly

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Twice so far this this week, I’ve seen LinkedIn posts that were very well written, communicated the core proposition adequately, and — overall — made it clear what the person was trying to say, and why. And in both those cases, my key takeaway wasn’t what they were hoping to communicate. It was “ugh, that’s so obviously AI-written.”

I’m — clearly — an advocate for using AI in your work. But I want you to use it in a way that’s effective. And I’m increasingly convinced that if you (or, more likely, your clients and the people you support) use it as a way to generate late-stage drafts, you’re actively working against yourself. Not because the copy is bad per se, but because of a concept called the “uncanny valley.”

That link goes to the Wikipedia entry for the term — dig in if you’d like. The basic idea is simple. When something gets close to seeming human but misses in subtle ways, our brains notice the gap more than if it had never tried in the first place. That's where a lot of AI-generated writing lives today. It doesn't read badly; it reads almost naturally, and that “almost” becomes the story.

That story can be summarized in one word: “ick.” And that’s game over for us.

Communications exists because we can’t read one another’s minds or emotions. What we do as communicators, fundamentally, is bridge that gap. And that requires empathy. We need to care about what the other person is going to feel, think, and do after reading our words. If the person on the other end of that message ends up with that “almost human” feeling, we’re telling them that we didn’t care enough to cross that gap. We’re saying that “almost human” was good enough.

But let’s face it, for the stuff that requires communications the most, “almost human” is never enough. It’s the exact opposite of what we need to deliver. The uncanny valley is a bottomless put for us.

It’s our job — as advisors and strategists, as opposed to stenographers — to make sure that our clients never fall into the uncanny valley. Which means not only that AI-written copy can’t be shared as a final result, but also — increasingly — that it can’t even be used in late-stage drafts. It’s just not worth the risk.

Your two next steps:

1) If the leader or client you support insists on using AI-written copy in their communications, you need to stop them. If forwarding them this email helps, feel free.

2) In your own writing, use AI drafting early on — that’s fine. It’ll get you past that blank page paralysis we often fac. But after reading what it wrote, toss it out and write it yourself. You’ll keep the good insights it uncovered, but you’ll get rid of the robot-speak.

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Hank Green is one of the best science communicators out there right now — he makes STEM topics accessible to the masses in ways that few can. A few weeks ago, he uploaded this 33-minute video, above, about something called the Jevons Paradox. The basic idea behind Jevons is that in many cases, when resources become more efficient for us to use, the use of this resource increases — even though you’d assume that more efficient use would decrease our total consumption of it. Take air conditioning, for example. It was really expensive to cool your house at first, but when technology made ACs more efficient, millions of houses and businesses installed ACs, places where it would otherwise be too warm to live saw population growth (leading to more ACs), and homes that were otherwise too big to cool started being built — leading to even more air conditioners.

That’s a straightforward example, and there are many that are hardly straightforward — particularly when we’re dealing with transformative innovations and technology. The printing press, as Hank explains in the video, didn’t just lead to more Bibles being printed — it allowed someone to create something called “newspapers,” which led to an exponential need for written content.

AI — and in particular, AI-assisted coding — may be the next horizon. We can build things that we previously could only dream of, and do so exponentially quicker than before. And that’s going to potentially unlock another printing press moment. Hank explains this far better than I ever could, so find yourself a half hour to watch the video above. (Nearly two million others already have!) But if you don’t have time right now, no worries: here’s my take, in only three bullets:

The need for our brains should go up. Communications is fundamentally about shaping information, not just regurgitating it. AI is making it easy for us to produce multiple versions of the same story from different angles and vantage points. But it can’t tell us which result is the right result. Our industry should expect to see a surge in demand for strategic messaging, content, and narrative building.

AI-assisted coding will supercharge this in ways we can’t yet imagine. AI-assisted coding makes software engineering cheaper and accessible to us. That’s not something that is obviously going to impact comms, but trust me — it is. (And that’s already started.) It allows communications teams to build more custom digital tools, interactive experiences, and data-driven narratives that were previously too expensive or technically constrained to develop. And that’s just the client-facing aspect. For ourselves, there will be tools available to us to streamline our workflows that will revolutionize how we work, the same way that interoffice memos are gone because we now have email. I’ve seen this firsthand in my own work — I built myself an AI chief of staff recently, and I’ve been moving so much more quickly as a result.

But don’t try to predict what, specifically, will emerge over time. Just go with it in real time. Hank’s biggest takeaway is that there’s no real way to figure out what’s going to change. These transformative moments are being driven by complex, emergent behaviors that are impossible to model in advance — he’s skeptical of anyone claiming to have a definitive roadmap for where we are headed. I agree — which is why I believe that curiosity, not a crystal ball, is our best path forward to embrace and benefit from these changes.

AI adoption is critical for communications teams — and I can help. Let’s work together to get your team moving — or moving faster.

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Until next Wednesday,

Dan

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