Fatigue from reading AI generated articles and post
Does that exist? Because I think I have it.
So, about a year ago I decided to re-take writing. I have always loved writing yet with work, kids and other responsibilities, it had been many years since I had purposely dedicated any time to it (since I had had any free time at all, in fact!). At the beginning, I did it as a means to clarify my thoughts because I was finding everything that is going on in the world a bit too much. I found that writing helped me center my thoughts and clarify ideas and reflections.
At a certain stage, I decided to post short articles. I guess I was curious on whether others were having similar thoughts and reflections and wondered if it would generate much engagement from colleagues and my network. Yes, some people responded but in general, engagement was limited. I started to review posts in the social networks that I follow (mainly LinkedIn and later, Substack and Medium) and saw that they followed certain structure patterns and wondered if there was a lesson to be learnt here, wrote a few based on that flow and structure (you know, start with personal story, main message, colourful icons accompanying bullets on positives-negatives, strong end message). I used ChatGPT for the first time and fed in my writing, asking it to improve them for publication. Nope, engagement stayed the same. My conclusion was that what I was writing was probably not all that interesting. Bit painful to admit but… I was actually OK with that because the reasons that I started writing were still valid for me. Writing helps me thing issues through and in these really crazy times, I need that.
So, I’ve kept on writing but only publish occasionally now. As a side effect, though, my reading in social media channels increased substantially too these past months. Not great, as there is a fine line between keeping informed and becoming over-informed and over-anxious at the state of the world today. Especially when it is clear that people sometimes publish to feed hopelessness and rage, rather than really inform. But I keep on reading anyway. And lately, I noticed that I was finding social media… tiring and a tad boring. Not only because of the content itself, also because of the sheer repetitiveness in how these articles are written and presented. Some ideas are original. But how they are presented… just isn’t.
And a couple of weeks it dawned on me. A lot of the posts and articles that I read on social media tend to use very similar structure patterns, they often rely on the same generic-phrases (Let that sink in; It’s time we talked about this; It isn’t just a moment, it’s a movement; In a world where…; What if we have been thinking about this all wrong? Here is the uncomfortable truth; etc.), presentation of statements using poetry-style to get points across, closure with an open question that invites responses. Forget the polemic hashtag – content itself clearly suggests that many of these posts are very likely generated by AI, or were heavily edited using AI.
Now, for some of you this is unlikely to seem much of a revelation. But for me, it sort of was because good writing is a skill and art that I very much admire. And yet more and more often, as soon as I spot writing structures that suggest AI, it generates a feeling of push-back and apathy and I can’t help doubting the content and the author. Maybe I am reading a genuine article and post, but I no longer process it from that angle. In a world where anybody can post (and often does, daily or more), where people no longer have time to verify the information they are sharing - never mind actually taking time to write and edit using your own style - and where mis-information and dis-information is rampant, it is easy for disillusion to take over. To stop reading the news and go back to only reading fiction in paper form (which I love too).
And yet, neither do I want to allow this idea that AI is taking over everything to defeat the primordial sense of unity and understanding that reading can creates, or to lose perspective on what is happening in the world at a time when clearly, we need to stay awake and observant. I guess my challenge now is working out how to do that.
No conclusion, no follow-up question.
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