I despise AI writing. Every time I see it in somebody else’s writing, my brain shuts down, I judge that writer, and I stop absorbing what they’ve written.
And yet…
I’m on parental leave right now, which has given me just enough distance from my work to review it with a fresh pair of eyes. I’m in the middle of rebranding my design studio. And with fresh eyes, I can see I’ve made some terrible mistakes.
One of the things I like to do with my studio site is trial new technologies before I use them in client projects. I might try a new CMS, for example, or a new programming language. I’ll experiment with new CSS features or design systems.
In this case, in addition to experimenting with new CSS features, I experimented with using AI as an assistant.
This is not the first time I’ve used LLMs. Prior to this, I’ve used AI for research assistance, clarifying my thoughts on spec documents, and fixing bugs during development (and writing tests, of course). LLMs seem naturally suited to these things.
For my portfolio, I took it a step further. I would pass exported designs from Figma to Claude and work through my thoughts on them. I would do the same thing for copy.
Claude is a terrible designer. Every suggestion it made was terrible. I thought the “value” in using an LLM for this task would be strengthening my own opinions, but the fact I felt the need for it at all clearly indicated a lack of confidence on my part. I consider that part of the project largely a failure. It both slowed me down and created new neuroses for me to work through with a therapist.
Using an LLM for copywriting assistance has proven to be a disaster in different ways.
Somehow, and I can only assume it to be a result of AI Psychosis, I ended up using Claude’s copy in my own writing. I can tell because the writing is garbage.
For example, one project gallery leads with a five-paragraph introduction (it’s 300% too verbose). Here are the first two paragraphs, which I will burn and rewrite:
Marketing website for a rebranded church curriculum. Acquired one year after launch.
After four years of growth, One Story renamed, rebranded, and repositioned their product to address the needs of their expanding customer base. One Story partnered with Wildfire to design a new marketing website that illustrates their new branding, their curriculum, their values, and their belief that children and youth have a valuable role to play in the story of the Kingdom of God.
Who the heck writes like this?
First of all, how did Claude convince me writing in third person was a good idea? It wasn’t my idea, but somehow I went along with it.
Second of all, this is just the bloated, flat, corporate-ese crap that LLMs spew out on the regular.
With distance, it’s so obvious how terrible this writing is. I would never write like this in a million years. There’s no storytelling, drama, or escalating tension to this. I know it’s a case study on a design study, but holy smokes, humans have been telling stories for millions of years, and this copy has all the excitement of a second-grade book report.
It’s just no good. There are ethical issues with LLMs, but even if you set that aside, they just sort of… suck. They zap the personality out of everything they touch.
That might be okay with code, but it’s an obvious no-go for writing. Or art. Or design. Or any situation where you don’t want to look like an incredible dickwad.
I’m grateful that I caught this now, because I can rewrite this and tweak the theme of the site before it goes live. I feel like I’m scheduling reshoots for a movie; the project felt basically done, but now it’s time to rewrite half the script in the edit and save the work from becoming a financial disaster.
The part that weirds me out the most is that I absolutely, positively, with 100% certainty, thought it was good before I went away for paternity leave.
I think of myself as a pragmatic realist, and most people I know consider me a cynic. What terrifies me about this is that I didn’t think I was susceptible to AI psychosis. I thought I was just dipping my toes in the water, but I feel like I jumped straight into a vat of oil and set myself on fire.
I have a bachelor’s degree in Rhetoric and Professional Writing. I was an honours student. Before I graduated, I got my start as a freelancer writing commercials for national television campaigns. How did I fall for this?
So disappointed in myself.