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yvonWell, I forgot I had this thing for the last 4 and a half years or so.
There are a myriad things to be frustrated with on the modern internet, but the one that was really getting to me this morning: the use of AI for writing has resulted not just in a proliferation of completely fake people masquerading as human, but also in humans presenting themselves with a writing style that is entirely homogenised. I don't know what it's called but I've long found the kind of typical "marketing speak" to be really irritating, the way that people write their emails when they're trying to sell you something. I didn't encounter this much at all until I started to take my career as an artist more seriously, meaning I had to start learning more about everything that goes into that or simple shrivel away and die. There are some very genuine teachers out there who will help you learn how to run a small business without losing your humanity, but there are also a lot of people who all write in exactly the same format that I guess is intended to engage readers.
They tend to put every single sentence on a different paragraph so you can read it all easily.
And then? They start asking themselves questions.
And then answering them.
Repeatedly, throughout the entire thing.
And every fucking email is structured like that.
There's more to it than that, but that's one of the most obvious and annoying parts to me. Anyway, this is also how AI tools have learned to write engaging text, except they don't just do it for marketing emails, they do it for everything. So now even fewer people are writing in their own voice, instead everything is structured in exactly the same manner. I regret that now I recognise it I see it everywhere and I become suspicious of people whose writing is structured this way. The last straw for me this morning was seeing a painter on Instagram with a shop selling their art and every one of the product descriptions was this lengthy AI-generated drivel.
However... I do have some sympathy for those people. I struggle with expressing myself in writing, and when it comes to my aforementioned creative career, it's probably one of the biggest roadblocks for me. I have to write about myself and about my work, I have to do more than just show people the pictures I have made because that is not enough any more. I have to be professional, but I also have to be a human. I want to maintain my privacy, but also tell people enough that they will actually care about what I'm doing. And not only that, but I do genuinely want to connect to people, to make friends. Social media is more of a struggle than ever, because any time I DO end up with a thought I want to express, it has to be chopped up and conformed into a sequence of 300-character snippets, or it has to be posted somewhere where no one will even see it. And all after all the effort I put in, I don't know whether it will even reach anyone or have any effect.
Obviously genAI is not a solution for this and is in fact both a result and a contributing factor to the modern internet being a harsh environment if you're trying to be a unique human being and connect with others. But I can still see why people might turn to it given what a struggle it can be. It preys upon people in that way. You can have the simple solution to all of these problems in your life in an instant, and those who aren't getting the support they need from society are particularly vulnerable to it.
Anyway, wrestling with how to present myself online is an on-going struggle, but I think if I were to write long-form things like this more often, in a place where I am not under pressure to appear any particular way, it would help. I hope so, anyway. It's certainly more natural and helpful than trying to express a thought on a microblogging site. Whether or not I will keep up with it, who knows, but I feel better for getting this out there.
ETA: I just looked at the old entries in this journal and my last one before I abandoned it was also about having a hard time existing online. Hah.
There are a myriad things to be frustrated with on the modern internet, but the one that was really getting to me this morning: the use of AI for writing has resulted not just in a proliferation of completely fake people masquerading as human, but also in humans presenting themselves with a writing style that is entirely homogenised. I don't know what it's called but I've long found the kind of typical "marketing speak" to be really irritating, the way that people write their emails when they're trying to sell you something. I didn't encounter this much at all until I started to take my career as an artist more seriously, meaning I had to start learning more about everything that goes into that or simple shrivel away and die. There are some very genuine teachers out there who will help you learn how to run a small business without losing your humanity, but there are also a lot of people who all write in exactly the same format that I guess is intended to engage readers.
They tend to put every single sentence on a different paragraph so you can read it all easily.
And then? They start asking themselves questions.
And then answering them.
Repeatedly, throughout the entire thing.
And every fucking email is structured like that.
There's more to it than that, but that's one of the most obvious and annoying parts to me. Anyway, this is also how AI tools have learned to write engaging text, except they don't just do it for marketing emails, they do it for everything. So now even fewer people are writing in their own voice, instead everything is structured in exactly the same manner. I regret that now I recognise it I see it everywhere and I become suspicious of people whose writing is structured this way. The last straw for me this morning was seeing a painter on Instagram with a shop selling their art and every one of the product descriptions was this lengthy AI-generated drivel.
However... I do have some sympathy for those people. I struggle with expressing myself in writing, and when it comes to my aforementioned creative career, it's probably one of the biggest roadblocks for me. I have to write about myself and about my work, I have to do more than just show people the pictures I have made because that is not enough any more. I have to be professional, but I also have to be a human. I want to maintain my privacy, but also tell people enough that they will actually care about what I'm doing. And not only that, but I do genuinely want to connect to people, to make friends. Social media is more of a struggle than ever, because any time I DO end up with a thought I want to express, it has to be chopped up and conformed into a sequence of 300-character snippets, or it has to be posted somewhere where no one will even see it. And all after all the effort I put in, I don't know whether it will even reach anyone or have any effect.
Obviously genAI is not a solution for this and is in fact both a result and a contributing factor to the modern internet being a harsh environment if you're trying to be a unique human being and connect with others. But I can still see why people might turn to it given what a struggle it can be. It preys upon people in that way. You can have the simple solution to all of these problems in your life in an instant, and those who aren't getting the support they need from society are particularly vulnerable to it.
Anyway, wrestling with how to present myself online is an on-going struggle, but I think if I were to write long-form things like this more often, in a place where I am not under pressure to appear any particular way, it would help. I hope so, anyway. It's certainly more natural and helpful than trying to express a thought on a microblogging site. Whether or not I will keep up with it, who knows, but I feel better for getting this out there.
ETA: I just looked at the old entries in this journal and my last one before I abandoned it was also about having a hard time existing online. Hah.
