simply abiding by the rules doesn’t make excellent writing — it makes conventional, unremarkable writing, the kind usually found in business reports, policy memos and research articles.

a certain energy exchange, a sense of connection across individual minds, a balance of surprise and familiarity.

By design, the program relapses to a rhetorical median, its deviations mechanical whereas ours are organic.

Indeed, the fact that AI, which is trained to detect and replicate underlying patterns in our writing, can produce such coherent prose is a testament to just how much we rely on convention, both at the sentence and structural level.

“You silly humans,” the chatbot seems to be saying. “Using the greatest technology of our generation to create funny memes. But okay, I’ll play along.” These moments convey a sense of energy that makes it hard for me to believe I’m not chatting with a sentient being. Perhaps having a strong voice simply means writing in a way that makes you seem

Reading ChatGPT’s writing feels uncanny because there’s no driver at the wheel, no real connection being built*.*

Their relevance is debatable, too — what’s the value we’re trying to preserve by differentiating human writing from AI? Is it really plagiarism not to cite an AI-generated phrase? Is plagiarism still the crime we think it is?

As we explore new applications for large language models and consider how well they can optimize our communication, AI challenges us to reflect on the qualities we truly value in our prose. How do we measure the caliber of writing, and how well does AI perform?