[Krssst]

Oh, it did not feel AI but Pangram does say AI, high confidence. Good catch.

(I'd trust an ML algorithm that only has to classify in two boxes, thus easy to evaluate, over my own gut feeling).

[yaelwrites]

I wrote this by hand but I did run it through an AI for editing. The changes were pretty minor; just a couple of lines.

[dwaltrip]

The first paragraph screamed AI to me. I'll try to dissect each bit, see below. It's hard to put it into words...

---

Send an e-mail + pick up the phone. Mismatched analog. First one is outgoing, second is incoming. Yes, I know you can pick up "to make a call". In which case, then we have the classic LLM pattern of eliding details that matter to make it sound "smooth" (like blended cardboard smooth, glug glug).

someone senior enough - Way too vague. Most people would add details here that are unique to the actual human being that they spoke with. But Claude can't do that, so we get this.

a hard question - Same thing as the previous one. Which question? Why is there literally no detail or actual flavor here?

- Real - Claude looooves punchy, empty emphasis words like this.

... , the kind you ... - Tacked on extra phrase that should be a separate sentence. Claude does this all the time. We aren't writing a shitting noir novel, Claude.

-a decision go sideways in a boardroom - vague shadow of an anecdote, of just the right length. The "a" in front of "boardroom" is a blinking red light for me, can't fully explain why.

Not what the textbook says. - Too short, too vague, with the rhythmic punchy feel. (Damn... I've been infected with the triplet pattern myself).

textbook, 5 studies, 30 years of experience - Pattern of 3...

- that a search engine couldn't - Oh man... this type of phrasing is so triggering for me, heh. I've been busting my ass trying to sanitize Claude's output so it haven't doesn't these overly cute, inverted constructions.

[yaelwrites]

Wrong, those were all me. (I just checked the draft.) The only part I tweaked was the conclusion, plus I broke up a few paragraphs that were too long.

I often leave out details and specifics or make things purposely vague because I am writing about real people.

[dwaltrip]

Heh, fair enough! It seems you may have been infected with the LLM aesthetic :)

Increasingly common these days... I've caught myself more than a few times.

[yaelwrites]

Heh, no problem. I will say the rule of three is something I've been taught over and over again... in speaking training, in a class I took on fundraising, and most recently in a book I read. (See, I just did it again!) Book was by Mehdi Hasan.

I also recently reread a blog post I wrote a decade ago, and it had the "It's not X, it's Y" pattern over and over again.

[nullc]

I feel sorry for your future writing prospects, because it looked like AI to me too: I insta-slop-back-buttoned on "so I scheduled one with someone senior enough to have real scar tissue, the kind you only get from watching a decision go sideways in a boardroom."

Thanks for the the correction-- often when people say they weren't using AI they are very clearly lying, so it's hard to get useful corrections on this point so I appreciate your candor.

[yaelwrites]

Oh, no problem! But now I am thinking I may need to rethink using AI for light editing. I've gotten in the habit of that because I don't have a human editor for my blog, and I like getting that extra polish sometimes, but it's probably not worth it if it's going to make people not want to read.

[nullc]

You can do a thing where you have it point out spelling and grammar errors or point out awkward parts without suggesting changes. But take care that you don't let it apply them as it may make other changes silently (especially if you're not running in an agentic harness with patch tools).