The rise of AI content – and the fall of authentic expression

I haven’t been posting on LinkedIn much lately, as I’ve been finding it all a bit depressing.

The volume of posts on LinkedIn has gone through the roof. But the quality has gone down the drain.

And it appears to be driven by one thing: an explosion in the use of AI. So many people are using it now to generate posts (and make comments).

I can see some good in this. Expressing yourself should never be – or be seen as – an elitist activity, reserved only for those who feel most confident in articulating themselves. Or for those who’ve had the most education and practice.

So, if AI helps democratise people participating in meaningful conversations by organising their own thoughts, then I support that wholeheartedly.

If it proves the difference between someone engaging in genuine self-expression over staying quiet, then that’s great.

But I really don’t see a lot of genuine self-expression going on.

Instead what I see is more static and less signal. I don’t see more people engaging in authentic self-expression, as much as I see more people putting their name to 200 words of LLM-generated nothingness.

As Joel Bailey says – it’s “all carbs, no nutrition”.

And, worse – it creates a canopy of grey that crowds out the vivid saplings of authentic self-expression.

I find this tragic.

Not just because the good stuff has become harder to find, but because I fear it’s normalising the wrong thing…

…that saying anything is better than saying nothing.

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