I sound like AI? I’ll take that as a compliment
No-one has actually said that to me yet… but if they did? It would be the best compliment I’ve had all week.
Everywhere I look, people are calling out AI slop. But, if we look at it more deeply, is that a correct description?
AI has been trained on thousands of years of human communication — the patterns, the rhythms, the ways we’ve learned to make words land. But does it always get it right? Of course not. That’s why we’re here: to give it the soul, the voice, the humanity. And my humanity check will always be different to yours, because we speak differently. Mine has a little sarcasm, a little observational humour, and the occasional “I’m not sure who wants to hear this, but I’ll put it out anyway…”
AI helps with the content sometimes. It also checks
the flow
the grammar
the spelling
the punctuation
AI takes my work and, often, improves it with the prompts I give it.
But, not always
There have been plenty of times when AI has told me something sounds “clunky”, but I’ve kept it anyway. Why? Because I know it sounds like me. Maybe I am going against the grain of all that human learning, but I’m not here to win the Pulitzer. I’m here to be me.
And just to be clear, if it’s not already apparent, I’m not a trained writer. My career has never been in the writing or creative sectors. I’m just your average Jo, saying things as I see them.
But over time, we’ve all learned the basics of how to write in ways that get a point across and keep a reader engaged. I remember being taught about blocks of three, alliteration, etc. People have been using the em dash for centuries, yet now it’s become, in some people’s minds, synonymous with “AI slop”.
It turns out that the em dash complaint isn’t even new.
Back in 1733, Jonathan Swift was already having a go at writers who covered up thin, lazy poetry with a few dramatic dashes — moaning that all the "trash" being printed was "set off with num'rous breaks and dashes." Sound familiar? Nearly 300 years later, we're accusing each other of the exact same thing. Imagine Swift being told off for using too many em dashes himself — he'd have thrown his quill up in disgust.
I’ll spend hours, sometimes days, writing one post. Going back and forth with AI. Iterating until I’m happy to put my name to it. I have the last word.
AI is the sous‑chef. I’m the one plating it up.
What I would never do is say to AI, “Write me a post on subject A,” and leave it at that.
Yes, it would write a post on subject A. Would it be any good? Probably okay. But it would also be something almost anyone else could produce.
If I immediately published that post, it would probably be called out as “AI slop”. Why? Because the input was “human slop”. And there’s plenty of that out there. It also gets labelled as AI slop because people have seen that same kind of post countless times before.
We need to put ourselves into our posts, blogs and writing. That’s what people want to see. That’s why they come back. They enjoy getting a glimpse of our personality. A simple, sloppy prompt can’t give AI that.
A person couldn’t write a genuinely good piece from sparse information either. Given that brief, they’d ask questions. They’d want context. They’d want to understand who they were writing for, what tone they were aiming for, what point they were trying to make.
AI is no different.
If you haven’t trained your AI to ask questions — to gather what it needs before completing a task — then don’t be surprised when the output is poor. Of course it’s poor. The input was poor.
If you hand a potato to a three-Michelin-star chef in the middle of a field, you wouldn’t expect them to whip up a gourmet meal. They need their knives, their pans, their seasonings — the whole kitchen. The magic only happens when they’ve got the full setup, not just a potato and a prayer.
But it's not just about what you put in.
It's what AI can teach you. When I first started chatting with AI, I realised it could teach me so much just by the way it responds. It explains why something works or doesn’t, leaving it up to me to decide if I agree. That’s where the real magic happens, the partnership. It’s like having a very patient writing partner who never rolls their eyes or sighs….Ideal.
Don’t just accept everything AI tells you. Don’t publish the first piece it gives you. Don’t let it speak — or even worse, think — for you. Think partnership, chat with AI to achieve the best piece you can. It’s only by doing this and learning that I now find myself here, writing this.
I never thought I’d be producing writing that I wanted other people to read.
I assumed no one would be interested — not only because I didn’t think I had anything worth saying, but because I didn’t think I could write something that would hold an audience…..errr, I’ve just realised that’s a bit presumptuous… is anyone still here or am I rambling into the great void? If you are, thank you so much. I’m almost finished...
But that’s changed since working with AI. Now at least I’m happy with what I produce. Yes — with what I produce. I have the first say, I have the last say, so my work is what I produce. AI is a tool I use. An extremely important one. It does a lot of heavy lifting, and that’s fine. I’m not ashamed of that. Without AI, none of my work would exist. That really would be a shame, I hope you agree!
If someone wants to judge me for using a tool that makes me better, they can go back to washing clothes on a rock.
AI is here, it’s not going anywhere. So, you can spend your time fighting against it, or you can work with it. I choose the latter. And I’m thoroughly enjoying my time.
Human first, human last. That’s how you get the best out of AI.
