Articles

Polished, Clear And Soulless – The New AI Writers

There’s something eerie about the way we write now.

It’s clear… it’s tidy… it’s too clear… it’s too tidy.
And yet… it all sounds the same (if you don’t know how it all works).

Welcome to the age of autocorrected expression – Powered By AI.

We’re not just using tools like ChatGPT to fix our grammar.
We’re starting to let them fix us.
And in doing so, we might be losing something deeper than a typo.

Let me be clear: AI can be a gift.

For people who struggle with language… non-native speakers, neurodivergent thinkers or anyone frozen by a blank page… this is a game-changer (and I HATE using that turn of phrase).
It unlocks access, speed and fluency.
That’s not just powerful… that’s progress.
But for average writers and communicators, something else is happening.
These tools don’t amplify your voice, if you use it long enough you can read that it actually begins to average it.
Like a calculator for language: you input your prompt… and out comes something accurate, efficient and emotionally beige.
Check out this article from The Verge: You Sound Like ChatGPT.

It’s why so much content today feels like a cross between a corporate LinkedIn post and a group-edited Wikipedia entry.

Polished… but bloodless.
There’s a word for this: convergence.
Researchers have started to track how AI-trained text converges our language… standardizing vocabulary, tone, even sentence structure.
The result (and I’ll bet you already know where this is going)?
A homogenized, corporate-y cadence that’s everywhere and from nowhere… it has no real soul.

Yes, we’ve seen this before (in a different vein).

Typewriters… corporate memos… email… Slack.
All flattened communication in their own way.
But this feels different to me.
Because writing isn’t just about saying something “correctly.”
It’s about saying something humanly.

When we outsource our voice to a system that was trained to sound like everyone… we start sounding like no one.

There’s real risk here.
Especially for younger generations.
Writing used to be how we found our voice.
Writing used to be how we made meaning out of what we read, saw… experienced.
It wasn’t ever about what you said… it was always about how you said it.

Now, it might be how we lose it… if we’re not careful.

If you’ve ever received a heartfelt message from someone… a handwritten note, a clunky-but-sincere email… you know what I’m talking about.
It wasn’t perfect… it was personal… it was personable.
AI doesn’t struggle… it doesn’t hesitate… it doesn’t reveal itself.
But that struggle with the words?

That struggle is the signal.

It’s the part that says: “I was here… a real person was here.”
Now, we confuse clarity with trust.
But sometimes the mess is the message.
Let’s not mistake utility for intimacy.
A well-written email is nice… a real voice is unforgettable.

So here’s the uncomfortable question:

If your words weren’t yours… would anyone know the difference?
And if the answer is no… what happens to connection?
To creativity?
To the quirky little ways we fumble toward being understood?
What happens when sounding smart replaces sounding like you?

In the future, maybe authenticity becomes a premium again.

Like vinyl… like film… like a handwritten postcard in a mailbox full of bills.
AI will keep getting better.
The outputs will keep getting cleaner.
The results will sound more like you, me… anyone.
But the most valuable thing in your writing won’t be its polish.
It’ll be the part that couldn’t have been written by anyone (or anything) else.
Because it came from you.

Uniquely you.

This is what Elias Makos and I discussed on CJAD 800 AM.

Mitch Joel · Polished, Clear And Soulless – The New AI Writers – The Elias Makos Show – CJAD 800

Before you go… ThinkersOne is a new way for organizations to buy bite-sized and personalized thought leadership video content (live and recorded) from the best Thinkers in the world. If you’re looking to add excitement and big smarts to your meetings, corporate events, company off-sites, “lunch & learns” and beyond, check it out.

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.