PHEW! I'm saved. On a serious note though, great post! Do you think the use of the 'zombie words' is linked to 'quality' because that's what the 'credible' people used to use to stand out?
This is very helpful, thank you. I'm so tired of seeing "It's not just this, it's this" everywhere. But I'm worried now because I just used the word 'tapestry' in a draft article about the composer Richard Strauss today. ;)
Interesting. I find it hard to pin down any one "tell". But usually a few paragraphs in I start to getting a nagging feeling. Something just isn't right, but putting my finger on it isn't easy.
I always find it's the people who've used AI the longest who are the worst for this.
At first, you're cognizant of tweaking then outputs to turn it into gold.
But then, after months of using it, and you be codependent on it (let alone your previous natural skills now atrophy), you become lazy. And stop tweaking it.
Then you have your emperors not wearing any clothes moment.
Defiantly be using this little guide from here on out. This one got me to fork over the cheddar to learn more on how to leverage AI in my Research and writing.
Over half the entire internet is already bot traffic. The inward spiral and collapse was in place at AIs inception. AI retrains on data constantly so the problem will persist.
Thats how we exacty find out right? Whatch follow detailes. Thats a nice subject to mirror the AI. We all have our specialties we follow, i like that about substack, people actually write about what they see and experience in detail🤍🌱
I honestly think that people consume so much of it, they become blind to the telltale signs.
It's similar to passing a skyscraper being constructed every day on your drive. One moment its not there but then a year later all of a sudden you notice there's a new building there.
This is good and I notice it too. Tho I feel frustrated sometimes as when I used to write a lot of story content on the socials (and gain numbers), I wrote a lot like how AI writes! Your bullet points would turn into a good edit prompt.
The reality is there will always be trolls and ignorant people who will yell "that's AI" without actually knowing for sure it's AI. Best to ignore them
What I don't like about AI is that they destroyed em dashes. Now I'm afraid to use them just not to look like its AI.
It's the over abundance of em dashes. I still use them and I don't immediately think someone is writing with AI.
How ironic, my AI writing assistant tells me I hedge too much 😭 maybe I am AI.....
It's the cluster of a few of these indicators that make it obvious, not one that stands out.
PHEW! I'm saved. On a serious note though, great post! Do you think the use of the 'zombie words' is linked to 'quality' because that's what the 'credible' people used to use to stand out?
Exactly right. The words worked for humans because they were rare. AI saw the correlation and now deploys them everywhere
Yeah so now you have to write like a dumb dumb with typos and bad grammar so people don’t think it’s AI. haha
I see what you did here
aha!—so in other words just forgyt the rules of ani writing; make senses.
I know 100% people are training their AIs to do this as well
Do you think we’ll get to a point where it will be near impossible to distinguish human and AI writing?
Spot on, AI is a good tool, but a human has to be responsible.
This is very helpful, thank you. I'm so tired of seeing "It's not just this, it's this" everywhere. But I'm worried now because I just used the word 'tapestry' in a draft article about the composer Richard Strauss today. ;)
It sounds like tapestry would be fitting for that article.
I think so too, as he weaves a complicated tapestry of notes. Thanks Ryan.
Interesting. I find it hard to pin down any one "tell". But usually a few paragraphs in I start to getting a nagging feeling. Something just isn't right, but putting my finger on it isn't easy.
Great article Ryan! I hate how ai makes everything generic. Ai is the em dash killer lol.
I always find it's the people who've used AI the longest who are the worst for this.
At first, you're cognizant of tweaking then outputs to turn it into gold.
But then, after months of using it, and you be codependent on it (let alone your previous natural skills now atrophy), you become lazy. And stop tweaking it.
Then you have your emperors not wearing any clothes moment.
I made a comment to this further down but I can't copy paste it back up here.
I'll check it out 👊
Wow, excellent article!
Thanks Doug
Defiantly be using this little guide from here on out. This one got me to fork over the cheddar to learn more on how to leverage AI in my Research and writing.
Welcome! Happy to have you.
This week I will share some prompts to make you more efficient.
Love me some efficiency
Over half the entire internet is already bot traffic. The inward spiral and collapse was in place at AIs inception. AI retrains on data constantly so the problem will persist.
Impressive how detailed youre in this✨️
Thank you. I have been noting these observations for some time with the idea to make a post like this
Thats how we exacty find out right? Whatch follow detailes. Thats a nice subject to mirror the AI. We all have our specialties we follow, i like that about substack, people actually write about what they see and experience in detail🤍🌱
The Emperors clothes moment is so true.
I honestly think that people consume so much of it, they become blind to the telltale signs.
It's similar to passing a skyscraper being constructed every day on your drive. One moment its not there but then a year later all of a sudden you notice there's a new building there.
This is good and I notice it too. Tho I feel frustrated sometimes as when I used to write a lot of story content on the socials (and gain numbers), I wrote a lot like how AI writes! Your bullet points would turn into a good edit prompt.
You can take the whole issue and make a prompt.
Tomorrow I am sharing the prompts to use.
If you were writing and you were gaining followers, you obviously stood out from the AI content.
Ooooh yes, thankyou. Good idea. I’m going to try it.
(I was writing about 8 years ago - way before AI!)
The reality is there will always be trolls and ignorant people who will yell "that's AI" without actually knowing for sure it's AI. Best to ignore them
What other zombie words would you say are appearing more recently?