Here’s something I’ve found myself doing that I’ve never done before in my life:

Doubting that people actually wrote things.

In the past when I read a LinkedIn post, I assumed that someone sat down and wrote the most obvious humblebrag they could under the false assumption that it wasn’t obvious. I assumed they lacked self awareness (or had no shame), but I didn’t question whether they wrote it.

Now when I read a LinkedIn post I have a little meter in my head that ticks upwards the more the post seems completely average in content and aggressively polite in tone. Eventually it hits a point of no return and I sit back and go “Yeah, this is ChatGPT.” And then I unfollow that person.

My main concern with ChatGPT was that it would make writing a dying art. But it may do the opposite because if everyone uses ChatGPT, everyone will sound the same, and everyone that sounds the same will get lost. The only way to stand out will be to sound better than ChatGPT (or at the very least different).

By commoditizing average writing and unleashing a firehose of identical content, ChatGPT (and other LLMs) may have the unintended consequence of making good writing stand out. I don’t think that’s OpenAI’s intention (and I’m quite sure they would avoid that outcome if they could), but it may just be a happy little accident.

(here is where I have a moment of self-doubt fueled panic. Am I good enough? Do I distinguish myself from ChatGPT? And honestly, I don’t know if I’m ‘better’ But I will say that I’m different. I think my voice comes through pretty clearly when I write, and I think that’s probably enough)

If you’re going “Oh crap, am I going to stand out??” right now then I recommend two things:

1. Read some good books. A good place to start on this very subject is Stephen King’s On Writing.
2. Write!