<![CDATA[Thinking about AI controversies in writing, and all the cautionary instructions to not use em-dashes, or semicolons, or short sentences, so that readers don’t think your book is AI-generated, and… well, first of all, get knotted with that rubbish.]]>Thinking about AI controversies in writing, and all the cautionary instructions to not use em-dashes, or semicolons, or short sentences, so that readers don’t think your book is AI-generated, and… well, first of all, get knotted with that rubbish.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/topic/cb21683d-dab4-4dff-95a7-a3a6aa02921b/thinking-about-ai-controversies-in-writing-and-all-the-cautionary-instructions-to-not-use-em-dashes-or-semicolons-or-short-sentences-so-that-readers-don-t-think-your-book-is-ai-generated-and-well-first-of-all-get-knotted-with-that-rubbish.RSS for NodeFri, 15 May 2026 10:24:48 GMTSun, 26 Apr 2026 18:24:15 GMT60<![CDATA[Reply to Thinking about AI controversies in writing, and all the cautionary instructions to not use em-dashes, or semicolons, or short sentences, so that readers don’t think your book is AI-generated, and… well, first of all, get knotted with that rubbish. on Mon, 27 Apr 2026 00:06:24 GMT]]>@antonyjohnston next step, inserting typos to “look human.” How long?

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mas.to/users/MardraS/statuses/116473750131526144https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mas.to/users/MardraS/statuses/116473750131526144Mon, 27 Apr 2026 00:06:24 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Thinking about AI controversies in writing, and all the cautionary instructions to not use em-dashes, or semicolons, or short sentences, so that readers don’t think your book is AI-generated, and… well, first of all, get knotted with that rubbish. on Sun, 26 Apr 2026 23:00:48 GMT]]>@antonyjohnston
I'm safe. I showed my writing style to an LLM and it had an aneurysm.

An example, the opening sentence of an editorial I am writing.

New Hampshire’s unique geography and its lack of usable intermunicipal public transit produce a mutually reinforcing relationship between economically constrained geographic mobility and geographically constrained economic mobility.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/ClariNerd/statuses/116473492202736831https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/ClariNerd/statuses/116473492202736831Sun, 26 Apr 2026 23:00:48 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Thinking about AI controversies in writing, and all the cautionary instructions to not use em-dashes, or semicolons, or short sentences, so that readers don’t think your book is AI-generated, and… well, first of all, get knotted with that rubbish. on Sun, 26 Apr 2026 21:59:13 GMT]]>@antonyjohnston I think you can extract "You can't buy trust. You can't force it." and keep it as a nice maxim.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://writing.exchange/users/tedel/statuses/116473250011573180https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://writing.exchange/users/tedel/statuses/116473250011573180Sun, 26 Apr 2026 21:59:13 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Thinking about AI controversies in writing, and all the cautionary instructions to not use em-dashes, or semicolons, or short sentences, so that readers don’t think your book is AI-generated, and… well, first of all, get knotted with that rubbish. on Sun, 26 Apr 2026 21:45:54 GMT]]>@antonyjohnston
Exactly.

Also, it is such a backwards thought.
“Do this to not look like the thing engineered to copy you!”

So the people who wouldn’t think it’s AI now think it’s my writing and I’m fake?

Such an argument is to place a NOT rule on you and so is in fact to program you. They seek to program you to sound like a computer.

The level of madness is insane.

How not to sound like AI? Have an original thought.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mathstodon.xyz/users/taatm/statuses/116473197635451550https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mathstodon.xyz/users/taatm/statuses/116473197635451550Sun, 26 Apr 2026 21:45:54 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Thinking about AI controversies in writing, and all the cautionary instructions to not use em-dashes, or semicolons, or short sentences, so that readers don’t think your book is AI-generated, and… well, first of all, get knotted with that rubbish. on Sun, 26 Apr 2026 21:22:44 GMT]]>@antonyjohnston This. 💯

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/lisamelton/statuses/116473106533465191https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/lisamelton/statuses/116473106533465191Sun, 26 Apr 2026 21:22:44 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Thinking about AI controversies in writing, and all the cautionary instructions to not use em-dashes, or semicolons, or short sentences, so that readers don’t think your book is AI-generated, and… well, first of all, get knotted with that rubbish. on Sun, 26 Apr 2026 20:11:10 GMT]]>@antonyjohnston
I agree about trust. It reminds me of debates about whether particular memoirs are "true" or not. In the end it comes down to whether we trust a particular author that these things occurred.

Gen AI is designed to stop us from doing a long list of very human things that it is trained on and trying to replace.

As you said, it is a futile exercise to force ourselves to stop writing in particular styles to appear more human. It is also to cede even more ground to the algorithms.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.online/users/TG_Esq/statuses/116472825166704697https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.online/users/TG_Esq/statuses/116472825166704697Sun, 26 Apr 2026 20:11:10 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Thinking about AI controversies in writing, and all the cautionary instructions to not use em-dashes, or semicolons, or short sentences, so that readers don’t think your book is AI-generated, and… well, first of all, get knotted with that rubbish. on Sun, 26 Apr 2026 19:55:09 GMT]]>@antonyjohnston

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://c.im/users/jake4480/statuses/116472762204115304https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://c.im/users/jake4480/statuses/116472762204115304Sun, 26 Apr 2026 19:55:09 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Thinking about AI controversies in writing, and all the cautionary instructions to not use em-dashes, or semicolons, or short sentences, so that readers don’t think your book is AI-generated, and… well, first of all, get knotted with that rubbish. on Sun, 26 Apr 2026 19:21:29 GMT]]>@waltman 😂💪

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/antonyjohnston/statuses/116472629803635379https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/antonyjohnston/statuses/116472629803635379Sun, 26 Apr 2026 19:21:29 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Thinking about AI controversies in writing, and all the cautionary instructions to not use em-dashes, or semicolons, or short sentences, so that readers don’t think your book is AI-generated, and… well, first of all, get knotted with that rubbish. on Sun, 26 Apr 2026 19:07:21 GMT]]>@antonyjohnston That is just like waving a white flag and laying down.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://cyberplace.social/users/khleedril/statuses/116472574242825215https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://cyberplace.social/users/khleedril/statuses/116472574242825215Sun, 26 Apr 2026 19:07:21 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Thinking about AI controversies in writing, and all the cautionary instructions to not use em-dashes, or semicolons, or short sentences, so that readers don’t think your book is AI-generated, and… well, first of all, get knotted with that rubbish. on Sun, 26 Apr 2026 18:44:13 GMT]]>@antonyjohnston One positive of all this is that folks wrote some excellent essays on how great writers have used em-dashes, and now I'm using them more than ever — take that, AIs!

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://hachyderm.io/users/waltman/statuses/116472483223597645https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://hachyderm.io/users/waltman/statuses/116472483223597645Sun, 26 Apr 2026 18:44:13 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Thinking about AI controversies in writing, and all the cautionary instructions to not use em-dashes, or semicolons, or short sentences, so that readers don’t think your book is AI-generated, and… well, first of all, get knotted with that rubbish. on Sun, 26 Apr 2026 18:25:15 GMT]]>You can’t buy trust. You can’t force it. You certainly can’t generate it with an AI prompt. And you can lose it in a heartbeat, as many have found to their cost.

But when it exists, it’s what makes a reader pick up a book, confident they’ll enjoy it, without ever wondering whether or not the author actually wrote it.

FIN

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/antonyjohnston/statuses/116472408645254356https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/antonyjohnston/statuses/116472408645254356Sun, 26 Apr 2026 18:25:15 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Thinking about AI controversies in writing, and all the cautionary instructions to not use em-dashes, or semicolons, or short sentences, so that readers don’t think your book is AI-generated, and… well, first of all, get knotted with that rubbish. on Sun, 26 Apr 2026 18:25:04 GMT]]>That trust is really all there is between us, all that matters. It influences your decision to pick up an author’s next book, or not. It might be the strongest influence there is on that decision.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/antonyjohnston/statuses/116472407921982827https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/antonyjohnston/statuses/116472407921982827Sun, 26 Apr 2026 18:25:04 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Thinking about AI controversies in writing, and all the cautionary instructions to not use em-dashes, or semicolons, or short sentences, so that readers don’t think your book is AI-generated, and… well, first of all, get knotted with that rubbish. on Sun, 26 Apr 2026 18:24:55 GMT]]>I know this because I’m a reader too. Every good author is. Reading is part of the job. And while I’m fortunate to call some of my favourite authors friends, there are many others whom I’ve never met and never will, yet have those same feelings of kinship and affection towards.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/antonyjohnston/statuses/116472407355520887https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/antonyjohnston/statuses/116472407355520887Sun, 26 Apr 2026 18:24:55 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Thinking about AI controversies in writing, and all the cautionary instructions to not use em-dashes, or semicolons, or short sentences, so that readers don’t think your book is AI-generated, and… well, first of all, get knotted with that rubbish. on Sun, 26 Apr 2026 18:24:49 GMT]]>More importantly, you come to trust certain authors; trust that they’ll entertain you, that you’ll enjoy their work, that they put the requisite time, effort, and attention into the words you’re reading to make it worth your while.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/antonyjohnston/statuses/116472406992465710https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/antonyjohnston/statuses/116472406992465710Sun, 26 Apr 2026 18:24:49 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Thinking about AI controversies in writing, and all the cautionary instructions to not use em-dashes, or semicolons, or short sentences, so that readers don’t think your book is AI-generated, and… well, first of all, get knotted with that rubbish. on Sun, 26 Apr 2026 18:24:45 GMT]]>So what does matter? More than anything, I think it’s about trust.

A readers’ relationship to an author is, in the modern parlance, parasocial. We have no knowledge of our audience, but they – that is, you – read our words, and through them come to feel you know us, at least a little.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/antonyjohnston/statuses/116472406680452955https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/antonyjohnston/statuses/116472406680452955Sun, 26 Apr 2026 18:24:45 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Thinking about AI controversies in writing, and all the cautionary instructions to not use em-dashes, or semicolons, or short sentences, so that readers don’t think your book is AI-generated, and… well, first of all, get knotted with that rubbish. on Sun, 26 Apr 2026 18:24:39 GMT]]>It also doesn’t matter what changes we make, what assurances we give readers, or what “Human written!!!” badges we put on our covers, because the people publishing AI-prompted nonsense can do all those things too.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/antonyjohnston/statuses/116472406316587328https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/antonyjohnston/statuses/116472406316587328Sun, 26 Apr 2026 18:24:39 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to Thinking about AI controversies in writing, and all the cautionary instructions to not use em-dashes, or semicolons, or short sentences, so that readers don’t think your book is AI-generated, and… well, first of all, get knotted with that rubbish. on Sun, 26 Apr 2026 18:24:33 GMT]]>I won’t change my writing style just because some online rando might claim it’s AI. The whole reason AI uses those traits is because *it was trained on things written by people*. And tomorrow it’ll just be something else, anyway. “Don’t use whole words! Sure sign of AI!” 🤡

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/antonyjohnston/statuses/116472405944201855https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/antonyjohnston/statuses/116472405944201855Sun, 26 Apr 2026 18:24:33 GMT