Don't use AI to write your letters/emails

[berettafan]

Got an email from a longtime client recently asking for a meeting to review a few things. It was very clearly written by some AI agent and not my client. I would bet dollars to donuts he doesn't have a good understanding of most of what the email actually says.

Folks be aware, if you are using AI to correspond with people who know you it very well could make you look like an idiot.

[herr_oberst]

OK. I won't use Adobe Illustrator to correspond.

[gacook]

I work for DoD. "We" are all-in on AI (unfortunately). Several of my employees and people I interact with regularly use it to write reports and general correspondence. It's so obvious that it's pathetic. The worst part to me is that people don't bother proofreading what the AI bot spit out. I constantly get improper acronyms or thoughts that just aren't quite right. I CANNOT tell my people NOT to use AI but I have to constantly hound them to at least proofread the crap.

[rwest]

Could have saved a few words in the title: “Don’t use AI” would have been better!

[gacook]

For data mining and other tools, AI is phenomenal. I hate that people are using it to write and create, though.

[berettafan]

I guess this was the first time it was used 'at' me. I didn't expect the reaction i had but it was/is pretty visceral.

Instead of efficient communication what i got was mimicry of what somebody somewhere thinks an intelligent conversation looks like.

[gacook]

Originally Posted by berettafan

I guess this was the first time it was used 'at' me. I didn't expect the reaction i had but it was/is pretty visceral.

Instead of efficient communication what i got was mimicry of what somebody somewhere thinks an intelligent conversation looks like.

That's a really great way to sum it up.

[crustychief]

The Gov put AI link on my desktop and sent an email for me to use it. I tried it out but it is full of mistakes and omissions.

[Por_sha911]

Originally Posted by gacook

I work for DoD. "We" are all-in on AI (unfortunately).

You may not know you are now unemployed (or haven't been to a meeting lately) since isn't it now DoW?

[jyl]

How about just “Don’t AI”.

I won’t use AI to write, read, summarize, analyze. I am fine asking it a question, ignoring its response, but reading the sources it cites.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by berettafan

… if you are using AI to correspond with people who know you it very well could make you look like an idiot.

I did that for years with a typewriter. Now AI will do it for me? I’m in!!

[masraum]

The Co that I work for is also all-in on AI. We have our own internal AI people and a dedicated AI that's only for our Co. AI is being used for coding, writing yearly reviews, writing the text for presentations used in meetings/zoom calls. I am behind the times. I haven't yet gotten my hands dirty, I mean, my feet wet.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

I did that for years with a typewriter. Now AI will do it for me? I’m in!!

ROLFMAO! Nice one

[MBAtarga]

I retired from a 3 letter telecom company back in March '25. They were heavily investing in AI for several business areas. When the engine was used for audio output - the "female" voice would state the name as "at and t" - it hadn't "learned" the name was "a t + t". Pretty funny at town hall meetings when it was used in demos.

[LWJ]

I will be a voice of dissent.

First, do I despise what AI is going to do to the workforce? Yes. Do I hate blind acceptance of technology. Yes. And I do absolutely agree with the sentiment regarding having AI write things. It is weird and lazy.

But, I do use AI. 10 minutes prior, I had ChatGPT write me a lesson on Italian reflexive verbs. It is pretty good.

But as for writing? A buddy who is a PhD, said that he will write a letter or something and then use AI to edit what he wrote. I have adopted this technique and it is valuable. I will then give yet a second edit (human powered!) after and have a very lovely written piece when I am done.

It is a tool.

[Bob Kontak]

Originally Posted by gacook

For data mining and other tools, AI is phenomenal. I hate that people are using it to write and create, though.

People send me Chat GTP answers telling me how to fix their stuff based on their description of the problem to Chat GPT. It's awesome.

I need to do this myself with oddball car issues.

[jyl]

Why I won’t use AI to write: writing is personal, your voice reflects your tone, style, priorities, thought process, knowledge, influences, vocabulary, state of mind, everything that makes you . . . you. Anything that changes your writing dilutes and obscures the youness in you. Should there be flaws in your writing, they are flaws in you. If they are flaws like Cindy Crawford’s mole, then leave them be or celebrate them. If they are flaws like the cleft palate in a Sally Struthers advert, then fix yourself. AI, by covering over your youness and concealing your youflaws, lets you pretend you are someone not youself. If U would normally write the preceding sentence as Uness and Uflaw and U and Uself, why would you not do so? To be someone else? When I read posts by cliff and look171, Higgins and Shaun, I know who wrote them. Their posts would be poorer without them.

Exception being writing that is not meant to express the writer, but to conform with a particular style for, usually, work reasons. Technical writing, academic writing, maybe legal writing until you get disbarred. A message that needs to be in a foreign language not spoken by the writer.

I also wonder what it’s like to someday have to dash off some writing quickly without AI, and have everyone realize you’ve been faking it all along. Unless, I suppose, we are turning into the entertainment industry, where most people are wearing wigs and injected and photographed with huge diffuse lightpanels then skin AI’d to plastic, and everyone knows it but no-one cares, because the point isn’t to be beautiful but to be a generic caricature of formulaic beauty.

[wdfifteen]

I get a lot of AI generated images on links to our Antique Power Facebook page. The fake machinery that pops up on some of them is hilarious. They are savaged by responses from people who know what a tractor looks like. What I don't understand is why would someone spend the time and effort to make up such absurd images?

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by jyl

Why I won’t use AI to write: writing is personal, your voice reflects your tone, style, priorities, thought process, knowledge, influences, vocabulary, state of mind, everything that makes you . . . you. Anything that changes your writing dilutes and obscures the youness in you.

Yep!

I used to have to write technical reports that were then sent off to tech editing to be turned into the expositive technical jargon that is acceptable in tech papers. I understand that, and AI will probably replace a lot of tech editors.

I agree that creative writing is a synthesis of the writer's knowledge, imagination, and life experiences, mixed with a knowledge of the intended audience. The day I slid into town up against a hard deadline and had to produce a good editorial in 20 minutes (I have posted it here, about a car that spoke French to me) I knew I was a writer. It would have been so much easier if I could have told AI to write it. But then what would I have accomplished?

[masraum]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

I get a lot of AI generated images on links to our Antique Power Facebook page. The fake machinery that pops up on some of them is hilarious. They are savaged by responses from people who know what a tractor looks like. What I don't understand is why would someone spend the time and effort to make up such absurd images?

Lots of whacky AI generated stuff out there. I don't understand why either. But then you said, "I don't understand why someone would spend the time and effort...," and that's the thing. There's very little time or effort involved, and that's why. When it's THAT easy to do, folks will do it.

I missed the whole Internet porn thing as a youngster. If we wanted porn, we had to find someone elses magazines or discarded porn. I can't imagine what it was like for the youngsters that came up when Internet porn was plentiful. What's crazy is that now, rather than using photoshop, I have no doubt that there are kids using AI to make their own porn.