I really dislike the new style of LLM-assisted writing that’s taking over:
- Repeating the same idea three times in one paragraph
- Long, winding transitions between each point
- Generous sprinkling of bold text
- “It’s not X, it’s Y”
In everything from social media comments to news articles and press releases, we’re losing the art of subtlety. Good writing, in my view, involves leaving implications unsaid to let the readers come to their own conclusions, using pacing and structure rather than filler sentences to set the tone, and tastefully violating the rules of syntax and semantics to draw attention to key points. A careful reader will appreciate the use of structure to support your argument, but we aren’t careful readers anymore. If virtually everything there is to read takes ten paragraphs to make a single point, and that point may not even be meaningful or interesting, then paying attention is a waste of brainpower.
A lot more people have things to say than have the patience to say it in their own voice. Furthermore, people’s natural writing styles are influenced by their conversations with LLMs, even when they’re not just copy-pasting. And as much as I hate it, this is driving language change at an unprecedented pace, and I’m fairly certain that it’s here to stay. Old men yelling at clouds have always wanted to control the evolution of language, but language doesn’t care what prescriptivists want it to be.
Thoughtful, intentional, careful readers will always appreciate high-quality, filler-free writing, but it’ll be drowned out by the sea of low-quality noise.