99 Comments
User's avatar
Chris's avatar

How about not using AI in the first place? If you work it out yourself and express it clearly you’ll be in a much better position to answer questions at the end.

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RC's avatar

There are a lot of these "How to get AI to write your ..." posts on here lately. I always considered social communication (including writing, presenting, even business presentations) to be part of the essence of what it means to be human. Now it's all about how to make the machine sound more human.

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Julius Mori-Régnier's avatar

Good perspective. Adam Grant actively warns against having AI write your texts, because it stops you from thinking. Writing is thinking.

What I do is, instead of having AI write texts on my behalf, I engage with AI on ideas. Because it helps me develop clarity and the overall structure of my arguments. Then the writing becomes clearer and easier.

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Jim's avatar

That’s how I use AI also, as a mental sparring partner.

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Aída's avatar

AI is indeed a useful tool for expressing yourself clearly or finding alternative ways to convey an idea—especially in another language—but the poetry is often lost. Sometimes I notice the robotic style of a text, other times I don’t. Despite this flaw, I find AI practical. The artistic side of language needs to be practiced personally—by speaking, writing, reading, and listening. And yes, I truly enjoy the act of expressing my way of thinking with my own style and rhythm

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Kathy Roots's avatar

Ah yes but not so much fun!!

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Kathy Roots's avatar

Actually back in the day we called that ‘simple English’. The fact that AIs use such language, in my opinion, is because it’s trained on lots and lots of corporate and patriarchal language items, so it fails to recognise simple English (apologies to non English speakers). But I also think people using AI for presentations, content of various kinds get lazy - ‘it sounds Ok so must be OK! People need to relearn communication skills on a whole new level if they are not going to become human AI speakers - if you catch my drift lol!!

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Ruby Cherie's avatar

this is what i personally struggle with bc i never learnt proper english... it was my worst subject and i never showed interest in it because i hated it + my adhd wasnt known and i had the worst teacher -.-

i want to learn this stuff so any suggestions on how to improve bc i dont want to sound like im writing prose. i want to be conversational and colloquial but be better at getting a point across without rambling, tangent-ing and going down a rabbit hole of words that could have been said in less lol

the damn first 3 secs/hook always trips me

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DIY Investor's avatar

You would be surprised that people prefer your style of writing now because it sounds more human and personal. 🙂

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Kamil Banc's avatar

👆 this

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Ruby Cherie's avatar

and 10000% on this

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Jim Smith's avatar

Why not just write yourself?

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Lacey Madison's avatar

I think it's very sad that people who have a large vocabulary and a solid understanding of grammar now have to dumb down the language to be perceived as authentic

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Kamil Banc's avatar

Lacey, that is not necessarily the case. If you have already found your own voice and published a lot of work, it's relatively easy to train your AI employees to write in your style. The problem arises when someone new uses these tools, and the output sounds very generic.

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Lacey Madison's avatar

I'm talking about the fact that proper grammatical tools—like em dashes, for example—are being used as "tells" that something was written by AI, even if it wasn't. That means hiring staff are reading cover letters, making an assumption about the writing, and throwing out my job application because I paid attention in English class.

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Kian Ameli's avatar

I love emm dashes and semicolons, and I’ll keep using them no matter what 😂

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Kamil Banc's avatar

A man’s gotta know on which hill to die on ;)

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Kian Ameli's avatar

And this is my Thermopylae 😂

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Jeannie Christensen's avatar

I love em dashes, and I will keep using them.

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Lotte Elsa Goos's avatar

Lacey, it’s a shame. I like em dashes and all kinds of metaphors, and wish we could stop calling them “tells” so easily

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Lacey Madison's avatar

Me too!

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Steve Mudd's avatar

Seems like a very robotic way to sound human. Have you tried just writing? :)

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Tammy Watchorn's avatar

Why do you want AI to write for you? Doesn’t it defeat the purpose of writing? Doesn’t it change your role in what is produced from creator to manufacturer. Genuinely puzzled

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Kamil Banc's avatar

Exactly that. Personally, I’m not a writer, never was, never will be. I’m a publisher, editor-in-chief, educator, director, etc.

People have many reasons to put written words into the world.

Writing isn’t about me, it’s about the value to the reader, and generally people tend to read for two reasons: for educational purposes or for entertainment. They don’t care about who or what writes it.

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Carol Virgil's avatar

how are u writing this 😭✌🏻

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Ingrid Wagner Walsh's avatar

This seems to miss the point. If you are capable of being an editor and a publisher, you are a writer. Unless you are farming those jobs out to AI also. People care very much about who writes. Or at least they should if they want to truly maintain any personal agency. If we let people off the hook for caring about or connecting with the writer, we may as well be grunting at each other. The point of communication is human connection, even in professional settings. Syntax, diction, tone, style are like a signature of voice. As soon as that goes away, and humans are no longer putting words together, we forfeit that agency. What you are talking about is transmittal of information, not communication. Those are very different things. It sounds like maybe you are not an avid reader? Many people aren’t. But it is not a human universal.

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Kamil Banc's avatar

Actually, I really enjoy reading, mainly to learn and gather useful information. That's also the reason I publish; I hope my work can be helpful to others. I don't seek to be known personally or for my style of expression; rather, I want people to judge me by the value my published work brings to their lives.

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Ross Dunn's avatar

I like some of the tips in your humanized prompt, I especially loved the addition about no summary footers - YES!

That said, in my opinion it includes too many subjective elements for an AI.

E.g. $10 words, incisive professional, never sound like an informercial, dry humour or an idiom if it fits the context, etc.

For this to be more effective consider the following updated version that probably still needs work!

<begin prompt example>

Rewrite the text below for professional clarity and impact.

- Keep every idea and fact. Only modify if the original is ambiguous or grammatically incorrect.

- Use active voice throughout. Maximum three sentences per paragraph, each under 20 words.

- Alternate between short (5-10 words) and medium (15-20 words) sentences.

- Replace complex words with simple alternatives. Use contractions.

- Delete these specific items: very, really, actually, basically, journey, roadmap, navigate, leverage, utilize.

- No bullet points unless the original had them for essential information.

- No summary footer. End with your strongest point.

- Replace all em dashes with commas, periods, or rewrite to avoid them.

- Include one understated observation per 200 words if it strengthens the point.

- After rewriting, review to ensure all rules were followed.

Return only the rewritten text.

<end prompt example>

I personally use a much larger one with even more nuance, but I thought this might help others here. AI is a blast!

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Kamil Banc's avatar

Thanks for the awesome feedback Ross. Appreciate you!

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K1's avatar

Boy I'm finna throw up

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Kamil Banc's avatar

keep it positive, mate

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K1's avatar

Respect lol but throwing up is positive cause you purging toxins hahaha

But in all seriousness, I hope yall solely use this for bullshit work like enriching corporations and not for serious creative work that could be used to expand your mind and consciousness. Because learning happens in the process, not the results and I know everyone is intelligent enough to produce creative work without AI as a crutch.

Not trying to demonize AI, but I am concerned about the fact people don't understand how learning works neurologically and undermine their neuroplasticity by offloading critical thinking and contemplation to robots that simply scour the internet for some shit some other guy already did.

but I'm into freedom so yall get your shit off lmao I just hope and pray people are doing this shit responsibly....

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Kathy Roots's avatar

Get your point. And to create new neural pathways you will need a lot of repetition. But yes learning does enhance that process. That said. If one us learning to use AI for writing or a host of other things - as we’ve all been doing for decades now - then the art of creating effective prompts surely forces one to think more critically about outcomes and intention in ways that you wouldn’t normally? Just a thought.

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K1's avatar

lmao there is a big difference between using AI to learn how to write and using AI to write for you.

AI is only going to be as useful as your brain already is. To think AI can step in and do the work of developing your brain, when your offloading the work to AI is... pretty suspect in my mind. Learning how to prompt AI so its better at writing for you, rather than prompting your own brain to write. Idk, feels backwards. I get the idea that you could glean benefit from AI in terms of coming up with more creative questions, but those creative questions are attempts to get better information to aid YOUR OWN writing, not to find better ways to get AI to write for you. If you only seek better ways to get AI to write for you, the point is YOU NEVER WRITE. and your writing only becomes better IF YOU WRITE.

according to neuroscience, neural pathways are strengthened by attempts to recall information. If you are offloading information recall to AI, then you are skipping the learning process.

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Kamil Banc's avatar

I’ll think you’ll like the Renaissance 2.0 section of the newsletter once I have a moment to start publishing there

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Sherry's avatar

Thank you for sharing! I love the prompts and the rationale.

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Discover Canada In Style's avatar

This has for to be one of the most useful, helpful articles I've read in a while. Thank you for this.

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Rocco R.'s avatar

LoL it works 🤓🤓💩💩

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Inspirante Animo (Chris Cody)'s avatar

AI gets better all the time. Proper prompts utilizing tone, perspective ect make a big difference. A lot of people can't really tell once simple editing is done. Make sure to tell AI certain words to leave out and not repeat.

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Jeannie Christensen's avatar

Who cares if u used AI anyway? If I hear talk about em dashes…

I have always loved em

dashes.

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H.O. Fischer's avatar

What do you think of Bob Kosse accusations of ChatGPT.

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Kamil Banc's avatar

Expand

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Pamela Wang, PhD's avatar

I was working on a video for this, but I’m not sure if I even want to publish because there is so much AI hate right now.

So the article that I wrote, wasn’t really about publishing AI written work for others, but how you can make AI work for you. A readability prompt instead of a guide on how to write.

I really appreciate the value that you’ve put here though.

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Kamil Banc's avatar

Please publish it and send it my way. Don’t let others keep you from creating. That's why I always sign off the way I do in my letters and emails.

Most people will realize sooner or later that it's just their ego talking.

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Kathy Roots's avatar

Be brave and daring, go for it publish your work - you’ll be proud you did - and ignore the trolls.

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Artemis Prezol's avatar

This is quite interesting read.

I mean, I understand the lack of acceptance for AI, because I do believe we should first learn when to use it. Specially if you are here in Substack the least you want is just reading IA content. Or watch AI images …looking for the “human” and the “connections”. Right?

But, it is true that for writing, more in the work/corporate environment it can be quite handy in many repetitive tasks and these tips are totally worth it!

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Kamil Banc's avatar

Reading offers us both joy and knowledge! With these amazing tools, I get to follow my life motto: adapt & create. So, I happily continue to adapt & create every day! :)

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Janet Salmons PhD's avatar

Actually, no. Please be honest with your readers, show basic respect. If you don’t care enough to write your own work, I don’t care to read it.

FYI if you read something with my name on it, you can be sure I wrote it. I’ve also created the diagrams and drawings.

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