Don’t use AI for meaningful communication

I get heaps of AI fatigue. I think it’s a byproduct of working in software. You’re constantly exposed to endless AI-generated content: email and text communications, images, blog articles. It’s fatiguing because it’s inauthentic and usually meaningless, and turns communication into a chore instead of a relationship-building exercise.

Take LinkedIn - I receive DMs almost daily, from people that are paying for LinkedIn (cringe (should be a crime)), that are always AI-generated. It’s easy to tell, because they’re punchy and shocking, full of flowery punctuation but devoid of any meaning. “Hi Fred, make a step change today - your job may not exist tomorrow *obnoxious book-time-with-me calendar link that suggests I’m already sold*. They personalise my name and nothing else, which is super easy for an AI tool to do. I don’t exactly blame the sender. They’re probably trying to hit an inordinate cold outreach KPI. But when the dust settles on their 10 million shitty DMs each week, they’re most likely left with the same amount of prospects they started with.

I don’t think AI shouldn’t be used for any communication; if you need to write something to simply pass a grade or communicate in scale with people that don’t matter to you, all power. It’s also the source of some S tier doomscroll content. But please don’t use it for meaningful communication, it makes you look inauthentic and stupid. Keep your bad spelling and grammar, you might be stupid but at least you’re authentic.

-Fred