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I'm genuinely curious, is it: a) the writing style you can't stand, b) the fact that this piece tripped your "this is written by AI" and it's AI-written stuff you can't stand? And what the % split between the two is.

(I find there's a growing push-back against being fed AI-anything, so when this is suspected it seems like it generates outsized reactions)


I’m pro-AI in general, but I hate the AI writing style that has gotten especially bad lately. It’s down to two things, neither of which are anti-AI sentiment.

Firstly, I find the tone of voice immensely irritating. It sounds like a mixture of LinkedIn broetry, a TEDx talk, and marketing speak. That’s irritating when a human does it, but it’s especially bad when AI applies it in cases where it’s jarringly wrong for the topic at hand.

I recently saw this example:

> This isn’t just “nicer syntax” — it’s a fundamental shift in how your software thinks.

https://www.hackerneue.com/item?id=44873145

It was talking about datetime representation in software development but it has the tone of voice of somebody earnestly gesticulating on stage while explaining how they are going to solve world hunger. This is like the uncanny valley except instead of it making me uneasy it just pisses me off.

Secondly, it’s so incredibly overused. You’ll see “it’s not X—it’s Y” three times in three consecutive paragraphs. It’s irritating the first time, so when I see it throughout a whole article, I get an exceptionally low opinion of whoever published it.

Having said that, this article wasn’t particularly bad.

The saccharin writing style would be bad in isolation, but bearable. The overexposure to it is what leads me to dislike it so much I think.

The fact is written by AI does add a layer of frustration because you know someone wrote something more human and more real, but all you get to see is what the model made of it after digestion.

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