Being Articulate Isn’t About Being Perfect

What does it mean to be “perfect”? This is the question that will continue to widen the chasm separating those who use AI to write written communication for them and those who don’t. It won’t be a matter of ethics or politics that keeps us divided, or job losses or job gains, or even laziness or diligence. It’ll be a matter of how we evaluate quality, which in most cases, means efficacy. Whether we consider “perfection” to be the product of smoothed-out edges and strings of words flattened to their lowest, most common denominator of loose understanding. Or whether peaks and valleys and color and texture will continue to be valued in written work, including the most profane of writing formats: emails and text messages.

Every once in a while, someone dear to me will send me a mundane piece of writing, usually a text message or a corporate email, and ask me what I think of it. But what they really want to know is whether I can tell that they used AI to write it. Whether they muddied the waters enough, concealed the seams of their non-handiwork well enough, like scraping fresh sneakers on the sidewalk or widening the ripping holes in your jeans. They don’t tell me that this is feedback they’re looking for, but I can just tell, in the same way a parent can tell their teenager is hiding something based on the artificial lilt in their voice.