‘The Pendulum’, or how AI stole your voice
It’s nearly Hallowe’en — scary film season — and the robots are coming. But don’t worry! You’ve got something in your pocket.
Something valuable. Something the robot doesn’t have.
“What is it?”, I hear you wail as the robots march towards you, blaring ‘Would you like me to turn this into a three-point plan?’ in their metallic voices.
It’s your authenticity. Hurrah.
If you’re using AI to write your marketing copy, please tread carefully. You might be losing the very thing that makes people feel a connection with you: your own voice.
More and more of the online landscape is being filled by smooth, bland, forgettable AI-generated content.
It draws on what has already been said and stitches it together in the rhythms that we most commonly use in ‘good’ writing. Part of the result of this is that people are becoming more sensitive to patterns in written language. How many of us have stopped using m-dashes because they’re now widely seen as an “AI tell”? And how many people paid attention to m-dashes before chatGPT’s moment began?
On the plus side, maybe this will make us all question what we read. On the other, it means the internet is being flooded with boring, samey content. This is no good if you’re trying to use it to inspire communities and create emotion. It’s the specific and the unique that sparks recognition in people.
Your voice is your POWER
Your own voice, with all its flaws and quirks, is irreplaceable. It’s what makes you distinct from everyone else on the internet.
But human voices are beginning to be swamped by AI. LinkedIn is a prime example. Over the years, I’ve followed a bunch of people who are insightful, funny or articulate about my industry. Seeing their thoughts and updates often provoked thought and helped me formulate my own ideas.
Unfortunately, more and more people are using AI to churn out posts, and I’ve been disappointed to see that even some of the leading lights in comms and marketing are now putting out confident-sounding, bland twaddle. Some may think they’ve “trained” chatGPT to their voices, but when every single post is in the same overconfident tone and bears no resemblance to the stuff I followed them for, it’s obvious. Sadly, I’ve unfollowed some people I used to admire as a result.
The temptation is understandable. We’re busy people. And when you pour your heart and soul into a piece of writing that gets no (or even negative!) response, it hurts. Why put yourself through the effort and pain of writing posts yourself, when a handy tool can do it for you in seconds?
Well, because what you’re selling on a platform like LinkedIn is yourself. And even if it’s scary, you have to show a little of that self.
When you hand your storytelling entirely to AI, it might save you time, but what you end up with will be as smooth and ineffective as a glass trampoline. It’s better to speak to your audience in your own voice, even (especially) if it isn’t “perfect”, than to flatten your identity.
The homogenisation trap
AI can’t be original, only learn from the past. It’s brilliant at averages. It can find what’s already popular and repeat it. But to stand out, you need the specific.
Here’s a simple example: two Facebook posts from a visitor attraction in Essex. White Dragon Activity Centre is known for offering a quirky, slightly weird, slightly humorous, fantasy-tinged take on outdoor activities like target shooting and axe throwing. During a recent marketing overhaul, I agreed to run an experiment. One of these posts is written by AI (thoroughly briefed on brand voice), one by a human. Which one do you connect with?
AI: lacks personality and isn’t clear. Sounds like it’s written by a slightly bemused parent trying to muster enough imagination to join in their child’s game. Got extremely low engagement.
Human-written: explains what’s happening clearly, brings in plenty of personality, and expresses the imaginative character of this small outdoor centre. Because the human is interacting with the audience, the content is playful and original. Great engagement and bookings resulted.
The pendulum will swing back
Sounds like a sequel to a story by Edgar Allen Poe. Who, by the way, you can chat to on Deep AI. It does a pretty nice job of responding in his style, much better than Chat GPT’s sad attempt above at being White Dragon Activity Centre. But could it have come up with it? No, because until Poe, nobody had been Poe.
Right now, AI-generated content is everywhere. People are getting more sensitive to it, and people in your audience are noticing. Sooner or later, the pendulum will swing the other way, and authentic, human writing will become a mark of quality.
It’s arguably starting to happen already. When there’s a crisis, people trust content that’s written by humans way above AI. And that’s nothing to do with punctuation or sentence structure, it’s the fact that the human-written stuff starts from a place of understanding and connection. Sounds wafty, but as you can see in the example above, it makes a genuine and impactful difference to communication.
When that happens, the brands and thinkers that have kept their own voice, the ones that still sound human, will stand out.
Think of it as future-proofing. The more human you sound now, the more valuable your content will be later.
Keeping it real
You don’t need to abandon digital tools altogether. AI can help with ideas, structure or proofreading,and it’s good at crunching data (although beware simple mistakes and always check its work). I won’t go into the detail of what it can do, there’s plenty out there about that already. But although it can be a really useful tool, it should never replace your lived experience, your curiosity or your way of telling a story.
If you’ve succumbed to the Invasion of the Voice Snatchers (rated 12A, contains moderate threat), here are some exercises you can try to rediscover your natural voice.
Go out into your workplace, or the community that your work matters to. Leave your devices in your pocket. Spend 20 minutes observing your site, your town, your landscape. Listen, notice details. Take notes on what you see, hear, smell and feel.
Write a sentence explaining what you do at work as if you’re speaking to a friend, or a child.
Listen (you can go on social media for this one). What are real people saying and feeling about your organisation? What would you say to them if they were right next to you? What’s unique about the culture, the feeling, of being where you are?
That’s the kind of communication that makes people feel a genuine connection with you.
The world doesn’t need more content. It needs more humanity, and the sectors we work with, at their best, have that in truckloads.
Entangled Creative works with visitor attractions, destinations and cultural organisations to help them find and share their authentic voice, rooted in their landscape, history and community.