I was so relieved when I read that Substack just launched an AI detection tool. Do you know how great that is!? I’ve had it with the thousands of pieces of AI-generated writing that I skim through all day starting in my own inbox (the sales emails, ugh!) to the hundreds of posts on Facebook, Linkedin (also horrible), the TikTokers and YouTubers who are clearly reading from a prompter (and you know it’s AI)… Even here on Substack… It’s like we can’t get away from it.
AI makes everyone think they can write exceptionally well, and I’m sure that feels wonderful for those who have always wanted to blog or write online, but lacked the confidence to begin. I get it, I really do. But writing and generating text are two very different things. Being a writer comes through years of trial and error, practice, experience, even failure. The other relies on a massive body of human writing where patterns have been learned and shaped.
We can all detect the sameness by now as we’re reading posts and essays across the apps - so many of them sound exactly like the last. I feel as though AI has drained the life out of most things that I read. I miss typos and when someone messes up there, their, and they’re. I enjoy (so much) to read rambling run-on sentences because, well, that’s how I think - so reading sentences that last forever doesn’t faze me - they feel super natural and nice - welcome even. If someone repeats thoughts in an essay, I also appreciate it (#IAMMIDLIFE) because then it stays with me long after I’ve finished.
What do you think about AI detection on a site like Substack?
It feels very fair and smart - because people are here to read, and often support and pay for, their favorite writer. If an entire piece is largely generated by AI instead of by the person you’re paying for their thoughts, it feels unfair to subscribers.
What do you think?
We all use AI tools for something - research, language translation, idea generation, as a coach, as a listening ear. Yet, its overuse is showing and it’s no longer fun or even fair to be faced with AI day after day. I feel like it could flatten a lot of online spaces and communities. I feel like it already has.
We have to let go of this AI reliance - it’s addictive as hell because it gives us fast, perfect, easy essays … Yet I want real voices - don’t you? I want goofy, quirky, funny expressions and localized text - you know, stuff you’d say to a friend in Seattle or a slang expression in SoCal that you’re using on the streets.
It’s tempting to use tools that promise us an easier way to publish online. We’re all busy, and writing from scratch like we did in the blogger era can be hard to return to after we’ve danced with the devil and felt his charm.
Come to think of it, AI is a bit like the bad, naughty boyfriend. The tough boy.
He promises us a faster than hell lifestyle and lots of easy action, but in the end - everyone can see that we’re not doing so good anymore. We’ve lost our touch, our focus, even some self-confidence and our own unique awesome sauce - just to keep up with him.
Months pass by and then WHOOSH… GONE… BOOM! He breaks up with us. And the bottom of our life falls out… All those insanely intense emotions come flooding in… We’re paralyzed, like we can’t do a damn thing without him.
Weeks pass and we start to wonder what possessed us.
But wait. There it is…
Our inner light flickers like a street lamp on a foggy night.
We start to have opinions that feel like our own again.
Why was he so alluring? What was the draw? What was so intoxicating about his danger and aura?
In the end, we’re kinda left with nothing except memories and a very loud wake up call. Our family and friends were right. We lost ourselves for a bit. Our friends stopped coming around - they knew.
We suddenly feel our uniqueness again. We’re no longer living through the toxic bad boy. We’re back in our flow. Our friends welcome us back to the pack. We’re suddenly in GAME ON mode.
And it
feels
so
damn good
once that kind of addiction lifts.
If you had a love affair with an AI bad boy, maybe it was Claude or someone else… Just know that most of us can relate. No judgement. But also know that you’re better off on your own. You can write without a tool helping you to form sentences. We’re not idiots - we’re the smart ones who gave AI its brain in the first place after all.
Not in perfectly structured sentences and paragraphs that all have the same amount of sentences.
People always say they miss the blogger days.
I believe there is much more to it than feeling nostalgic for a time period. What we really miss are the days when people earned their unique voice. Maybe this wake up call with the Substack AI-detect tool can be a small way back to those times.
Thank you, Substack, for giving this community a way to honor human writing. Thank you for letting us know that getting ahead here can be done in the most human way possible - expressing ourselves as neatly, crookedly, oddly, strangely, or as imperfectly (or perfectly) as we wish, and still be accepted as a writer worthy of a paid subscriber.
Love,
Holly
(Photo: Holly Becker)
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