Is AI Making us Stupid? You’re probably getting a lot of emails these days written by Claude or Gemini or ChatGPT. The chatbots are always inviting us to make them our own, give them a name, and use them for business correspondence, among many other things. Hell, LinkedIn even offers to write my posts for me once it sees that I’ve started to share my thoughts with my social media connections. Thanks anyway …
Maybe I’m a bit of a stickler?
Talk the talk. Ketanji Brown Jackson is speakin’ my language.That’s definitely the first time I’ve made a statement like that about a United States Supreme Court Justice. And I’ll go even further and say it should be your language too. A bit of background … A firestorm erupted over Justice Jackson’s dissent from the court’s decision limiting federal judges’ ability to issue universal injunctions. You might remember the case; it had to do with birthright citizenship. And she called the ruling in the Trump administration’s favor “a seismic shock” to U.S. legal norms. Jackson also said, “Courts must have the power to order everyone (including the executive) to follow the law — full stop.”
One-to-many is really one-to-one. I’m writing this for you. Yes. You. Just you. In fact, I have an image of you in my mind as I choose the words I hope will make an impact with you. Maybe make you smile. Words that will stay with you for a little while. Or maybe even a long while.
Now we both know that other people will read this too. Their reactions may be just like yours or they might be completely different. The point is that I have an individual in my mind as I sit here at the keyboard. Same thing when I’m speaking. No matter how many people are sitting there hearing me, they’re listening to me one by one.
Is it Real or is it AI? Yes, you’re reading words I actually wrote myself, sitting in my office, typing them out on my laptop. We’re seeing a lot of blogs, social media posts, and marketing emails that a real person didn’t write. More and more of us are using ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Anthropic to do our writing for us. That’s why the phrase “AI slop” comes up in so many critiques of those blogs, social media posts, and marketing emails. And that description is often warranted, don’t you think? Me? I’ve prided myself on doing my own writing, posting, and emailing. And I like to think I’m at least decent at it. I’ve been dubious about using one of those AI tools and resistant to learning more about them. And then … the subject came up again during a coaching call.
Speak their language. What do you say? A better question might be “How do you say it?”.
Marketing genius Seth Godin was writing about writing this week. I had speaking in mind, though, when I read this in his newsletter: “It’s tempting to simply focus our attention on the text itself… But messages merely begin with the text. The rhythm, presentation, source, and context deliver most of what we take away from a message.” Amen to that! A client preparing for an important speech came to my office dining room table this week with a copy of her speech. It was fine. And “fine” isn’t exactly a home run, is it? My job is to help my client bring this talk from fine to fabulous.
