It’s a sad day when you scroll through your LinkedIn feed and realise that you can no longer tell the difference between human-written copy and AI-generated content.

It’s an even sadder day when you realise that this isn’t because AI got good.

I’m talking specifically to all those would-be writers when I say this, people… we’re failing.

Either we’re not trying at all to outperform the tech that will one day “take our jobs”, or, we’re trying too hard to keep ourselves relevant and socially buoyant by writing absolutely any old shite purely for the sake of saying something. The ironically generic social media shouts of “Stand out!” and “Be visible!” are quickly causing a saturation of content online that’s all filler, no killer. It seems that instead of crafting something to cut through the crap, we’re competing purely on a like-for-like basis in putting stuff out there just to take up space. I’d say it’s tit for tat, but that’s a whole other platform, really…

I wonder sometimes if my fellow writers and I might be enduring something of a grief curve when it comes to our general response to AI…

At first, we were in denial that it would take off at all – never mind take our jobs – because, quite frankly, it was all a bit shit for quite a while there, wasn’t it?

Then, we vented our anger in response to AI indeed starting to show stronger signs of job-stealing capability, what with former clients and future prospects alike all gushing in awe over ChatGPT’s swift ability to turn almost any creative request into a solid C/D borderline* GCSE exam response.

Next came the bargaining, where we were happy to entertain the idea of AI being present in our lives, providing we could find some kind of fair compromise along the way. So, we’d grant it the status of serving up a half-decent first draft or a preliminary idea or two, on the basis that everyone who clambered up its AI-hole conceded that the output would only ever be as good as the prompt it was fed in the first place. For reasons of nuance, polish, and personality, everything would still always need to be ultimately checked and signed off by a responsible grown-up.

And then, well, we dipped into a depression, as more and more business owners began to choose AI over skilled professionals for their copy and content needs. Even for their comms, too which surely should be the most human function of any business set-up. I’d rather die than AI, personally, but that’s just me. Might print that on a T-shirt.

And finally, we hit acceptance. Or rather, if you ask me, we settled.

AI can and will take our jobs. In a lot of cases, it’s already done it – and in a few of these, maybe it’s even deserved it. Unless we kill ourselves in a race to the bottom, AI will always be faster and cheaper at churning out content, therefore laying itself out as totally irresistible to many a business owner in need or want of quick and cut-price copy. We can’t fight that, my friends. It’s business. But I feel we can still uphold a standard for our industry, don’t you think?

The theory was always that whilst AI would – like any technology – evolve and improve over time, the fact would remain that the people making use of it to promote their businesses or ventures would all eventually hit a sticking point, because guess what – their copy is now exactly the same as the chaff churned out by their competitors. They’ve all fed it the same prompts, and so similarly, they’ve all shovelled up the same shit at the business end in the post-digestion stage of events.

When business owners start to grasp that realisation – and they will – we’ll need to be ready to write for them to restore the human touch and personality-fuelled connection that was otherwise considered dead and buried in the search for cheap and quick fixes.

So, fellow writers…

When that point shows itself… will you be ready to take your job back?

*Yep, I’m old school. Literally.