Response article: The AI train has left the station
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Carly Ayres' insightful article, Spotting machine-made prose about the patterns and pitfalls of AI-generated writing brings up a very important question for me:
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Now that we can identify machine-made writing, do we want to do anything about it?
The concerns about mediocrity, digital decay, and the erosion of human creativity are absolutely valid, but focusing solely on identifying AI-generated patterns is like keeping your eyes on your rear-view mirror while your car speeds toward an unknown destination.
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The AI train has left the station, and it’s already running full-steam ahead in the workflows of businesses, content creators, and casual users alike. AI writing tools are no longer just novelties; they’ve become essential for how teams brainstorm, iterate, and produce content.
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I’ve experienced this first hand. I introduced and launched a Generative AI platform (Writer) at a previous company. At that same company, they launched Glean. And with the official launch of Glean, the HR team suggested that employees use the tool to write their emails.
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Whether it’s drafting blog posts, summarizing data, or writing employee feedback during review cycles, AI has become an indispensable assistant. While the “tells” of machine-made writing may be obvious now, I’m willing to bet that they’ll get smarter and subtler as models improve.
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Can the AI train be stopped? Or should we focus on steering it?
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Will readers care who writes the content?
As AI-generated content continues to proliferate, will readers really care if a human or machine wrote what they’re consuming? For niche corners of the internet and artistic expressions—like a J. Peterman catalog’s playful descriptions or a human reviewer’s unpolished, yet vivid take on a video game—I can see how the personal touch could still hold value. But in the vast sea of utilitarian content—like product descriptions, SEO-driven articles, or social media captions—I’ll venture to guess that many readers will prioritize utility over origin. If a machine-generated review tells the reader what they need to know, or an AI-crafted headline grabs the reader’s attention, where the words come from may be moot.
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In today’s fast-paced business world, speed and efficiency are key to staying competitive. At that previous company I mentioned, implementing a Generative AI platform helped to transform how I scaled the content design discipline. My point is, embracing AI isn’t just about innovation; it’s as much about keeping our role of content designer relevant... perhaps even secure. (I think you already know how this story will end).
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I get that this isn’t just about reader preferences. It’s also about what we lose as content creators. Carly Ayres and Elizabeth Goodspeed highlight the intangible magic of human writing; the unexpected connections, quirks, and discoveries born of struggle and iteration. These elements may not always matter to readers, but they’re extremely vital for writers. I know, I’m a writer, too. Writing isn’t just about the end result. It’s about the process of getting to that end result, a deeply human way of understanding and making sense of the world.
The AI era is upon us
We’re still in the early days of the AI revolution, and things will continue to progress and shift. Patterns that are obvious today may become untraceable tomorrow. The tools that feel like “shortcuts” now may evolve into indispensable extensions of human creativity. Rather than resisting the change or dwelling on what’s already been lost, the challenge is to adapt thoughtfully. How do we maintain the integrity of our voices while embracing AI’s potential to augment (not replace) our creativity?
The answers may lie in how we teach, create, and critique. As Elizabeth Goodspeed suggests, the goal isn’t to banish AI, but to remind ourselves and others that the messy, imperfect process of human writing is irreplaceable. Just as writers embraced the shift from handwriting to typewriters to computers, they can now integrate AI into their creative process, while still preserving what makes their work meaningful and human.