Perhaps you know the story of The Emperor's New Clothes. The quick version is these guys trick the Emperor into thinking they made him clothes that only smart people, or those fit for office, can see. So as to not look stupid (or unfit), he pretends to see the non-existent clothes and goes out in them.

Everyone else buys into this story too. To not look stupid, they pretend to see the clothes. It's not until a child points out, "he hasn't got anything on," that everyone realizes the farce. The crowd catches on...but the Emperor and his noblemen keep pretending. The moral of the story is people will go along with a lie to not appear stupid.

I've been thinking about this story a lot lately for something else that's been fashionable in certain circles: training AI to "sound like you" so it can write for you.

How AI Writing Is Supposed to Work

A person will feed everything they've written, or some voice notes, into their favorite AI tool. They will tell the AI to look at how they write, and the sorts of words they use and punctuation, and maybe even add some personal stories.

Then they can feed the AI a half-baked idea and tell the AI to write an article that "sounds like them." Some people might even have a separate skill in AI to check for AI slop¹.

The end result is they have a piece of writing that should be indistinguishable from their actual writing.

Does It Actually Work?

I can't say it never works; I haven't done the legwork to determine that. But my very strong suspicion is it only works in certain use cases. The main one being you're writing some step-by-step guide where the steps don't change very much. But even then, you can add prose...like a personal story or analogy...to the beginning to help people understand the guide.

Even if you're a bad writer, suddenly being a good writer doesn't sound like you. It will sound too polished and inauthentic.

Most of the time, especially if you're a gifted writer, people will be able to tell that you didn't write piece. It's the equivalent of whatever the dead-eyed look in AI-generated images is.

So why do people keep doing it?

No One Wants to Look Stupid

The Emperor's New Clothes ends with the Emperor saying, "This procession has got to go on." Either because he wants to keep believing that he's wearing clothes, or because he wants to keep up the facade that he is wearing clothes, he keeps going.

Most people who are using AI to write for them probably really want to believe that the writing sounds like them. It's such an incredible time saver to not have to write your own thoughts.

Some suspect it doesn't but believe eventually it will. And some probably don't care because they want to check a box.

But in any of these cases, there's likely also the fear that they'll look stupid. They don't want to admit that instead of just putting in the effort to write every day, they tried to take a shortcut and it didn't work.

Much like the Emperor, they feel, "this procession has got to go on." But it doesn't have to.

How to Use AI in Your Writing

I've written possibly ad nauseam about why using AI to write for you is bad, mmkay. I've also written about what you should think about anytime you use AI to replace a human being.

But if you want to use AI in your writing process, here are a few approaches:

Use It for Copy Editing

This isn't a foolproof plan, because AIs are not human and they don't think. They can't tell you if something will resonate with your audience. But they are word calculators and can tell you if what you wrote makes sense.

I will have it recommend specific changes, citing the line number. Then I will determine if the change is worth making.

Turn a Voice Note Into an Article

I've softened my stance on this over the last year, because this was also a "no" to me. You can't fully trust that what the AI will output is a 100% true representation of what you've stated...especially when it's interpreting what you've said from transcript only, not intonation.

But I also recognize that the blank cursor is my best friend, and seeing the words appear on screen is the best way for me to process my thoughts. This isn't the case for everyone, and if I'm going to keep toeing the line that writing is thinking, spending 20 minutes talking through something is most certainly thinking².

The important bit here is that you review its output and make sure it captured your points, in a way that you'd word it. I would say something like, add headlines and punctuation, but never reword anything I say. Use only the words I used in the order I used them.

Use It to Pull Thoughts Out of Long Transcripts

Something that I'll use it for isn't the writing part, but the ideation part. I'll have it look at podcast episodes I was on, coaching calls, or even regular calls, and pull subjects I can write about, along with summaries of the points I made.

This prevents what can be time consuming for people: figuring out what to write about. When speaking off the cuff, you probably say a lot of good stuff, but you're in the moment. That moment is gone when you go to write. This approach helps you.

Why This Is So Important to Me

Some people might be wondering why I care so much about this. On the surface level, it's about time. Why should I read what you couldn't even bother to write yourself? It's a completely selfish move on the part of the orchestrator of the piece.

It's also disingenuous. If they really didn't care if people knew AI wrote for them, the AI would get a co-author byline. But they know that will hurt their credibility.

But on a deeper level, I'm worried that since the advent of social media, we've been marching further and further away from the ability to critically think.

Getting opinions from people who have no business stating their opinion is one thing; taking it at face value because they don't care to fact-check it, or it's what they want to believe, is another.

And when we don't do our own writing, we're taking it one step further. We're signaling that we don't care to think about what we're putting into the world. Example: this article took me about an hour to write. But I was thinking about it for a couple of days.

We can look at eras throughout history and point to incredible, humanity-defining works. The Homeric epics. The Bible. The Declaration of Independence. Countless works of fiction.

I'm worried that one day, we'll look back at this era and realize we didn't create anything that transcends the current moment. That we won't have something that lasts 3 years, let alone 3000, 300, or even 30.

The real question is: will we realize that using AI to write for us hurts us, like the child who knew the Emperor wasn't wearing anything, or will we act like the Emperor in the name of trying not to look stupid?

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