trying to articulate what i hate about "AI writing"
dan
so it's like if we imagine a normal distribution but then we set super intense resonance at exactly the middle point. that's how it feels to be surrounded by AI writing every day. it's average *without* the normal distribution — just extreme dose of narrow average. this is what pushes my buttons
Jul 6, 2026 at 11:49 PM
Wherein I Find Myself Writing About Writing
Most everyone finds writing to be challenging (especially those who say they enjoy it). This is because writing is an intentional, thoughtful act. This is as it should be, but “AI” has recently exacerbated the misbelief that writing is simply an output. In fact, it's a creative process that has merit in and of itself.
Writers Who Use AI Are Not Real Writers
Dorothy Parker famously (but probably not really) said, “I hate to write, but I love having written,” which is a sentiment I don’t largely understand or agree with in the broader …
How to write well with AI
Why people who pledge never to write with AI are telling on themselves
Writing With AI Is Harder Than You Think
It takes rigor, judgment, and willingness to be told your work isn't good enough.
How easy is it to spot AI writing?
With AI writing becoming increasingly commonplace, how can we spot it and what difference does it make?
How the AI Writing Panic Is Making Us All Worse Writers
This applies to those who use AI to write and those who don’t
God Damn AI is making me dumb
It's so god damn tempting to use AI to write. Whether it is articles, code, or documents. I feel like using AI is diminishing my ability to write myself. ...
Literature fans should welcome AI as a fellow wordsmith | Aeon Essays
Strong resistance to AI among writers is understandable. But it obscures what we share with the machines: language itself
I pulled ~90,000 Reddit posts about what makes writing "sound like AI" to determine the biggest AI-slop giveaways (Part 2)
674 votes, 228 comments. The majority of people can instantly tell when writing is generated by AI. For those who don't intend to get into the weeds…
Writing With and Beyond AI: Fieldnotes from Computer-Mediated Poetry
Apr 10, 2026, 12:15 pm - Large language models can make writing mind-numbingly efficient — but the point of writing with AI should be to write what we couldn’t have written alone (without generating bland, derivative “slop”).
Ethan Mollick on Twitter / X
There is a lot being written about the stylistic tells of AI writing (em-dashes, etc.) but this paper looks at AI narrative tellsFascinating differences between AI & human narrative, and asking AI to write in different styles doesn't do much to change it https://t.co/azkRHz34NQ pic.twitter.com/oTxSGBNYYE— Ethan Mollick (@emollick) May 28, 2026
StoryScope: Investigating idiosyncrasies in AI fiction
As AI-generated fiction becomes increasingly prevalent, questions of authorship and originality are becoming central to how written work is evaluated. While most existing work in this space...
The only reason you’ll ever need not to write with AI — The Carlson Lab
Over the last year, our lab has been developing a policy on AI use. To do this, we did three main things: We read a lot of academic publications and tech news. We set up an #ai channel on our lab Slack to share news, experiences, and memes. We had several long and grueling lab meetings talk
I think it’s telling that people very interested in AI (like Eugene and myself) still have no interest in using it as a proxy for human communication. “Being a good writer” is not the same thing as having social agency, and making the models even better at writing won’t change that.
Eugene Vinitsky 🍒
When you deploy heavily LLM text, you currently have no way to prove that you actually read it and therefore cannot convince me to read it
AI* and creative writing
To differentiate from e.g. news articles and legal filings. * I’m neither “pro-AI” nor “anti-AI.” I’ve been blocked for being perceived as both. —Actually, I’m honestly more anti-AI than pro-AI thus far, aside from specialized models and specific use cases, but I’m willing to consider information that’s new to me
AI* influence on writing/speech
* I’m neither “pro-AI” nor “anti-AI.” I’ve been blocked for being perceived as both. —Actually, I’m honestly more anti-AI than pro-AI thus far, aside from specialized models and specific use cases, but I’m willing to consider information that’s new to me
I hate how the constructions now associated with AI "writing," which of course are stolen from actual writing, are now making me edit myself…
Let me know if this is just me: Noticed someone I know who is very "AI-pilled" and uses agents 24/7 to... start to talk IRL noticeably more…
Your AI Use Is Breaking My Brain
AI ‐induced dehumanization
Do You Speak ChatGPTese? Beyond Writing, AI Is Also Flattening The Way We Talk
Will AI shape the way we speak? The emerging sociolinguistic influence of synthetic voices
Heated Rivalry is at the Center of Fanfic’s AI Reckoning
