One of my clients is SUPER excited about AI…but so far, it’s not working too well for him.
Here’s what happens.
First, he writes something in his own natural, unpolished way. It’s a stream of consciousness, so the structure usually needs some work, but it sounds exactly like him. It’s got the words and the rhythm he actually uses when he talks.
Then, he asks ChatGPT to revise it, and the results are…meh 😐. The readability is usually a bit better, but all that glorious personality is just GONE.
When you compare the original and the ChatGPT version side by side, it becomes clear why this happens. The AI is just rephrasing his ideas, paragraph by paragraph. It might flip sentences around or combine them, but mostly it’s just replacing words with other, similar words.
It’s a bit like that episode in Friends where Joey writes a letter, then uses the built-in thesaurus in Word to make it sound “smarter.” It turns out completely unintelligible instead.
Well, ChatGPT doesn’t do that, but it does completely erase my client’s unique voice from the page.
It MATTERS that he says “however” instead of “but,” or “stress-free” instead of “peaceful,” or “thrive” instead of “flourish.” It MATTERS that his sentences have a certain clipped rhythm, and that he’s a bit overly fond of ellipses. When those details disappear, the writing suddenly sounds generic and impersonal.
On top of that, ChatGPT DOESN’T fix what’s actually problematic about the writing—namely, the disjointed flow of ideas. It can’t identify that these three ideas from different paragraphs should actually go together, or that this part is repetitive of that one, or that this thing in the middle would actually work better as a hook at the beginning.
(Spoiler: that’s the work I end up doing after ChatGPT has had its turn 😉)
Now, I will admit, it may be that with a more nuanced prompt, the AI would do a better job. But the typical ChatGPT user who just wants to polish their writing quickly isn’t going to think deeply about how to explain that task to the bot. They’re just going to pop in their stuff and see what comes out.
So I guess this is a PSA to all casual AI users: don’t let AI eliminate the personality from your writing.
Your unique voice is a crucial part of what makes people want to keep reading your work. It helps them feel like they’re connecting with a real person, not just digesting information. That human connection is what will bring readers back to you again and again.
So by all means, experiment with AI. Have fun. Go wild! Just be careful not to walk away sounding like everyone but yourself.
