A good friend of mine recently shared a thought on LinkedIn that caught my attention.
They said they really enjoy using ChatGPT for many things, but feel it’s starting to erode what they consider “real” social engagement. They mentioned that when they come across certain writing patterns that feel like they’ve been shaped by AI, like the telltale double hyphen (“—”), it immediately puts them off.
Posts like this always trigger something in me – in a good way. Not because I feel the need to defend AI or dive into a counter-rant, but because they push me to ask questions, the kind that sit beneath the surface.
What’s really bothering us here? Is the discomfort because:
- A machine is doing the work?
- The person themselves is not doing the work?
- Or maybe, the outcome just isn’t good?
These are not the same issue dressed in different clothes. They are entirely different conversations.
If the problem is #1, that a machine is involved, then the objection seems to be about the actor. It implies we’re okay if another human steps in – just not a machine. That’s a strange kind of line to draw in a world where machines have been shaping our lives, our work, and our experiences for centuries.
If the problem is #2, that the individual did not do the work themselves, then it’s a question of authenticity. The underlying belief here is that work only counts if we personally put in the effort. But that’s a slippery slope because if we examine our daily lives, we don’t actually live by that rule.
If you hire someone to build your house, to craft your marketing campaign, or to bake your wedding cake, do we dismiss the final product as less meaningful because you didn’t do it yourself? When you outsource tasks in your business, when you commission designers, when you contract manufacturing – does the work suddenly lose value?
Continuing in the same vein: do we call the printing press a cheat code because we stopped handwriting each copy? Were cars an insult to walking? Should we reject every technological leap because it removed some level of human exertion and/or intervention?
If authenticity demands personal labour, then a diamond bracelet for your partner should also fail the test. After all, someone else mined the diamond. Someone else cut it. Someone else polished it. Someone else built the bracelet. Yet none of us would question its beauty or its sincerity.
In every one of these examples, whether it’s the factory, the marketing agency, the car, or the diamond bracelet, there was either another individual involved, a machine involved, or both. This can be extended to almost everything we produce or consume on a daily basis. And we’ve accepted that, even welcomed and celebrated it, because the real issue isn’t usually who or what did the work. It’s whether the work is good.
Which brings us to #3, that the outcome is simply not good. And that’s the one that actually matters.
If the content feels generic, hollow, or uninspired, that’s a real problem. But I would content, that’s not a ChatGPT problem. That’s not even an AI problem. That’s a quality problem.
That’s an input issue. That is a failure of guidance. That is a lack of clarity. And poor quality is just as possible with human writers, agencies, consultants, or factories as it is with machines.
It’s tempting to build a moral hierarchy around who or what did the work, but that’s a distraction. The world has long relied on collaborative, distributed, and increasingly automated effort. Our products, our services, our stories, almost none of them exist in isolation or in pure, unassisted craftsmanship. We are part of ecosystems, of supply chains, of human-machine partnerships. That’s not a compromise of authenticity – it’s how progress has always worked.
So we come to the important question: could one say: “I love commerce, but every time I see a “Made in Somewhere,” it ruins the ‘real’ personal experience. When I see the telltale sign of industrial manufacturing, I lose interest :(“
Of course they can. But usually we don’t. Because, we care if it’s good. We care if it resonates. We care if it meets a need, solves a problem, or moves us.
The question isn’t whether a machine helped or whether you did every part of the work yourself. The question is: is it good? did it live up to its purpose? was the value delivered?
The rest is just noise.