An Apology to Generative AI

ChatGPT spelled out in Scrabble tiles

By Ariella Brown

I'm not a generative AI fangirl. If anything, I'd consider myself more of a skeptic because people tend to not just use it as a tool to improve their writing but as a tool to replace the work of research, composition, and revision that is essential to good writing.

It is generally embraced by people who consider online research to be too much work and who believe that anything that comes out of a machine that will charge them no more than $20 a month for writing to be too good a deal to pass up. 

For those of us who actually read, the output of ChatGPT and similar LLMs is not exactly something to write home about. Unless you know how to prompt it and train it to write in a truly readable style, it will default to the worst of wordy, opaque corporate style text. 

But this isn't the fault of the technology. It's the fault of the mediocre content that dominates the internet that trained it. Below is one example that I pulled off  the "About" section of a real LinkedIn profile (first name Kerri maintained in the screenshot that proves this is real and not something I made up):  

As a strategic thinker, problem-solver, and mediator, I thrive in managing multiple, sometimes differing inputs to achieve optimal messaging and positioning. My proactive nature drives me to partner with leaders across marketing teams and internal business units, aligning efforts, connecting dots, and adding context to enable flawless execution of communication strategies and tactics.

In fast-paced, fluid environments, I excel in effectively prioritizing tasks and ensuring they are completed efficiently. I have a proven track record of setting and meeting strict deadlines and budgets, leveraging my ability to navigate dynamic landscapes seamlessly.

Driven by natural curiosity, I am constantly seeking to understand and implement the latest trends, technologies, and tactics essential for driving B2B sales opportunities. My keen interest in exploring new channels for messaging and content distribution fuels my passion for innovation and continuous improvement to not just meet but exceed expectations.

Let’s connect to explore how we can drive success together.

You know what sounds exactly like this? Cover letters you ask ChatGPT to compose for you. 

I've tried those out a few times and never been happy with the results because they always sounds like the text above. Trying to tell it to sound less stiff doesn't make it sound any less canned, and forget about getting it to copy my own writing style.

It's possible that Kerri used ChatGPT to create her "About" section. Given that she's been in the marketing biz for some time, though, I'd think she had to have had something filled out for years before ChatGPT was available, and it likely sounded very much like this even if she did let some LLM or something like Grammarly tweak it for her.  

People like Kerri, who ignore all writing advice from the masters like Orwell, White (watch for a upcoming  blog about him), and others made this the public face of corporate communication who are to blame for the bombastic and soulless style that LLMs replicate at scale. 

That's the reason for this apology too ChatGPT for mocking its output. You're not the one at fault. You had no way of knowing better. Humans do, and they should have provided you with better models for writing. 

Note on the title: I thought of giving this post the title "Apology" intended in the classical sense of a defense or justification for something others take as wrong with the hint of an apology to AI. Knowing that that wouldn't be clear to some readers, I opted to make this just a straight apology instead. 

Related:

A new generative AI comparison

The Perils of prompt engineering

Bard vs. Bard
Add a pinch of salt to creative claims for AI

An A/B test of generative AI
Bard brings in the clowns

Another pitch that goes wrong

  

By Ariella Brown

This pitch arrived in my LinkedIn messages today: 

• Hello Mam, I want to collaborate with you regarding articles publications on techopedia.com plz respond so we could discuss further.

It's amazing how many wrong notes a person can pack into such a short message.

1. What is this "Mam" doing here? I'm not clear on whether he was going a casual "Hey, man," vibe and mistyped the last letter or if he is misspelling Ma'am as in Madame. But why would he do that when he can address me properly by name?

2. Jumping right into what you want without establishing some basis to interest me in the endeavor. What value is supposed to be in this for me? Do you have industry insight to share? More likely, he's just hoping to get his company offerings described in a publication without paying for it.

3. While he may have found me from Techopedia, he did not bother to check that on profile I show it as ending a couple of months back when the publication was sold to a new owner. It's being taken in quite a different direction by a company that heavily pushes gaming and crypto and so is no longer the same type of publication that I contributed to.

4. What's up with this nonstandard "plz" in this context? You're not texting a buddy but trying to set up some kind of working relationship with someone new, so this is hardly the way to express yourself.

In a certain mood, I may have responded, but I decided to write about this instead. Any other writers get similar messages with the same pattern?

One bad turn deserves another

Later, the same day, I got this message (all misspelled words retained from the original):

• Guest posting equries

  Hi! I saw the page of your blog techopedia.com and I saw that the page the page of your blog is beautiful and well decorated. I really enjoy your recent blog post. It is very effective and interesting. I want to share my thoughts on your blog. I totally understand that there would be some editorial fee involved and I'm ready to pay. I hope so you will like my suggestion and we will get benefited mutually side by side and this will help us both to rank our business. It's my pleasure that we work together I have bulk orders on your sites. Kinldy share your sites lists. Then we work mutually together. I hope u understand well. I'm waitning for your positive response Kind regards

A few weeks later, I got this doozy

I visited your YouTube channel and found that your channel videos are not SEO optimized and your videos have very low SEO scores. If you want me to grow your channel more and grow your business and your videos go viral, I will do on-page and off-page SEO optimization with your channel videos and work with actionable and performance tags of your videos and improve the SEO score of each of your videos to 95 plus score out of 100. As a result, your videos will go viral, every video will rank on YouTube, YouTube will get your videos first in search engines and people will find your videos very easily and your videos will come up in google-search. And I will promote your YouTube channel organically and manually. As a result, your channel will get more subscribers, likes, views and watch time day by day. As a proof I am giving you a sheet with before and after SEO results with links to some of my client's channel videos that are live on YouTube where you can see all the details. Please check this:[redacted] Please feel free to inbox me if you have any questions!

The reason it's such a doozy is that I don't have a YouTube channel, so the claim that he checked it automatically mark him an incompetent liar -- not someone I'd ever consider giving my business.

Related:

How to get everything wrong in a pitch

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How to get everything wrong in a pitch

 

Some of the work I do for clients extends to drafting Letters of Introduction (LOI) for them to use as a cold email or introduction on LinkedIn. The general principles behind crafting such letters is to keep them brief (like five sentences long), focused on the interests of the receiving party, and not to attempt to sell on the spot.

Rarely do people get all the above right. Instead of starting with LOIs to ease into gauging interests, they tend to move directly into pitches, and many of those are the opposite of intriguing.

I recently put up a post on LinkedIn about red flags in cold pitches. Someone seems to have mistaken that as an invitation. Today I saw an Inmail that ticks most of the boxes for how not to message me.

This message came from someone who describes himself as a content writer and ghostwriter hitting up someone who also offers exactly those services for potential work. Here's the screenshot:

Shooting yourself in the foot from the opening

The person claiming writing expertise already gets everything he could get wrong in just the opening with "Hello Mr. Ariella Phd."

I have 3 strong objections plus one more nitpicky one.

1. Why assume Mr.?

2. Why not use my last name that is listed before the the PhD?

3. Why show that you don't know what a PhD means by treating it as a last name and not using it to come up with a gender-neutral title of Dr.?

4. In direct address, you really should have a comma between the Hello and the name. I know very few people bother with that for emailed messages, but a professional writer should still know that.

Using cliches and vague terms

It doesn't really get better after that. After the "Good Day!" greeting, the writer goes on to say, "I'm asking for a few seconds of your valuable time to offer my content writing expertise in your endeavor to keep the industry thriving."

1. You can't literally mean just a few seconds of my time, as that wouldn't suffice for your pitch.

2. What do you think is my "endeavor," and which industry do you have in mind with the definite article?

Not showing an understanding of the recipient's perspective

The next sentence is: "It will be my pleasure to get the chance for a progressive discussion with you."

Of course it will be your pleasure. You're the one reaching out to me to try to pitch your services, so you assume it will be beneficial -- "progressive" not the right word in this context -- for you. But that's hardly a point to convince me to hear you.

Needless to say, I didn't respond.

Related:

Another pitch that goes wrong

Define good

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Schoolcation post makes the LinkedIn List

One of the great things about writing for Optimove is that I get to review hundreds of interesting marketing stories to select the very best ones to be featured on the PostFunnel site. My most recent one just got this LinkedIn mark of distinction:
"Congratulations! Your post was featured by the LinkedIn News team in "Home-schooling...at Disney World?"

To read the post, click on Hotels Now Offer “Schoolcations”

The Introvert Cheat Sheet

Bridge near Bear Mountain, photo by Ariella Brown

I saw the title in my email and knew I really shouldn't click it, but my curiosity got the best of me. In spite of my expectations, I clicked the Contently-promoting article, The Introvert’s Guide to Creative Collaboration and found very little that really fits the needs of introverts.

Small talk, for real?
I really got a sense that the author, Bradley Little, is not an introvert. While he claims he his approach doesn't require any form of "rewiring" pushing introverts into small talk is the equivalent of forcing a lefty to write with her right hand. She may look like she's doing the "normal" thing, but she'll be very awkward and clumsy at it, which will make her less confident in the situation.
In other words, the following is extremely bad advice for introverts:

When you’re nervous going into a call, break the ice. Small talk helps you find connections but it will also get you out of your head. Comment on the weather. Yeah, it’s dumb. We all know it’s dumb. But it’s something anyone can talk about. Ask them how their morning is going. Ask them about their weekend. Do they have kids? Where do they live?
It really doesn’t matter what it is. The important thing is to see the people you’re talking to as just that—people.

This is wrong on so many counts!
Asking about kids may even be an illegal question in some contexts, so stay off family unless the other person explicitly bring it up.
Introverts don't necessarily have a fear of people. That's shyness, rather than introversion. Sometimes the two are coupled in the same person, but they are not synonymous.

 
It's true that many introverts hate talking on the phone. They have a serious aversion to the instrument, so for them, an in-person meeting may actually be preferable. If you're not a phone person, ask about meeting for coffee, or the like. That will actually win you major points because extroverts value in-person contact.

 
The key to getting the conversation flowing is not stilted small talk hitting on a topic that the person is passionate about. They will be able to go on and on, and you just have to ask the relevant questions, interjecting appropriate comments here and there. The result will be a much more stimulating conversation that creates a deeper connection than you can ever achieve from "So what do you think about this weather we've been having, huh?"

 
Now you may be thinking, "But how do I get to find the person's passion?" It's not all that difficult if the purpose of the call is related to business. You already know what the person does for a living, and you can ask about their work-related motivation, how they see their company's position, etc. Introverts are actually amazing conversational partners because they don't seek to dominate the conversation themselves and give the other person the opportunity to talk about himself. Who doesn't love that?

 
Absolute perfection is unattainable
To give credit where credit is due, it does bring up the important issue of impostor syndrome. However, that is something that applies to all people, and not just introvert. There's no substantiation that introverts are more afflicted than the general population, though the tendency toward introspection does also likely result in more self-doubt. A good article on overcoming that is Cat Neligan's Five Tips to Overcome Impostor Syndrome.

 
My own tip is overcoming an inclination to perfectionism because that holds you back from accomplishing. Sure, you want your published work to be as perfect as possible, but if you obsess over every dot and tittle in it, you will never meet a deadline or be able to move on to the next project at a pace that really allows you to make a living at this.

 
Will people gloat if a writer includes a typo? Sure. Should you let that destroy your self-image, though? No. 

Even the highest paid baseball players are not expected to bat a thousand. It simply is not humanly possible. And it is not humanly possible to NEVER make a mistake. Holding yourself to that standard is absurd, so forgive yourself, fix what you can, and move on.

 
Ask for What You Want
Of course, you don't merely want to move on but to move up, and this is the most important thing to advance your career: you have to ask for what you want. That means asking people to consider you for a job, recommend you for a job, or even getting a raise on the job you have.

 
I admit this is very difficult for introverts. The prevailing fantasy in a hard-working introvert's mind is that all the effort put in will be noticed and appreciated, and the people who do that will simply give us what we wish for without our having to express it. This is a nice fairy tale that rarely comes true.

 
I put in the qualifier above because really it does sometimes come true to some extent. I have had people contact me out of the blue because they recall my interviewing them for an article in another publication and so came back to me when they and are in the position of hiring writers. But even in those cases, it sometimes takes months for these things to get off the ground, and it may prove to be a very short-term need.

 
There's no escaping the need to keep not just looking for new opportunities but asking for them.
And as for the raises, I have yet to have someone just say, "You know you've been doing good work for us for several years now, and you deserve a raise." It doesn't happen. But I have had some honest editor admit, that, yes, they were paying some of their writers more, and I did deserve that higher rate. But I had to ask.

 
Does that mean it always works? Not at all. I've had my requests for raises turned down with the excuse that the budget was fixed, and that was that. So I may have been disappointed, but I was not in fact any worse off than I had been before asking.

 
As for recommendations, here's the thing: you definitely want some decent recommendations on your LinkedIn profile. But most managers won't just offer to do it, not because you don't deserve it but because it entails some work on their part. So again, you have to ask and sometimes even follow up with a gentle reminder. You may never get one from some people, but if you don't ask, you'll have none at all.

 
The Introvert Cheat Sheet
Play to your conversational strengths to make connections, including the medium of communication.
Don't let perfectionism hold you back. Good things don't always come to those who wait and have to be actively pursued.

 

(I posted this article to LinkedIn under the title Real Tips for Introverts) 

 
For more on introversion, read:
http://uncommoncontent.blogspot.com/2012/05/perspectives-on-introversion-this-is.html
http://uncommoncontent.blogspot.com/2012/04/working-alone.html
http://uncommoncontent.blogspot.com/2012/04/great-introvert.html
http://uncommoncontent.blogspot.com/2013/06/jane-austens-heroines-from-extroverted.html
http://uncommoncontent.blogspot.com/2013/08/happiness-is.html
http://uncommoncontent.blogspot.com/2014/12/views-on-boundaries.html
http://uncommoncontent.blogspot.com/2013/11/public-or-it-didnt-happen.html