Iâm pretty sure I had a conversation with an AI on social media today.
It started off as seemingly a conversation with a human being, But after a while I began to think âhang on, youâre just repeating back to me what I just said - youâre not adding anything new or useful to the conversationâ.
It seems like the goal of the AI was to arrange a 1-1 call with me to find out more about each other. I guess thatâs fine and it saves the person using it some time setting up calls and allows them to âscaleâ it.
But the minute you detect youâre not really talking to a humanâŠmy word it pisses you off. It sends a huge âyouâre not worth my timeâ signal.
Itâs a bit weird if you think about it. Iâm happy to interact with machines for a whole ton of stuff from buying my groceries to recommending music to summarising documents for me
But some things feel wrong if theyâre not real people.
Like direct messages on social media.
Or newsletters.
The reason I subscribe to someoneâs newsletter is to get their unique insights. To hear their stories.
Not regurgitated ideas and phrases from an AI thatâs scanning the web for âbest practicesâ.
How can you tell when youâre chatting to an AI? Of course, there are tools you can use, but the main thing is that you just get a sense itâs not a human. It doesnât feel genuine. Thereâs nothing new or original.
And I fear that if you look at a lot of email newsletters they might well fail the âAIâ test.
Not that theyâve been written by an AI. But they might as well have been.
Thereâs nothing original - just regurgitated ideas that you can find elsewhere.
No strong point of view. No strong voice.
No real life examples. No mistakes or speed bumps. No truth.
If you read back a couple of your recent newsletters, are they filled with life? Are they clearly better than something thatâs been written by an AI?
If not, you might want to beef up your skills with the Unsnooze Your Inbox course on Effective and Engaging Email Newsletters. Itâll show you how to get all the ideas you need and write a vibrant newsletter that will be valuable and interesting to your potential clients while building the credibility and trust needed for them to be ready to buy.
And definitely not a newsletter that could be mistaken for AI.
- Ian