The Problem With Using AI in Your Content Creation Process

I kind of have mixed feelings about elephants.

On one hand, I think they’re absolutely beautiful animals. Majestic, even.

Butttt I have to admit their trunks just kind of freak me out a bit. They’re appendages, so like our arms, but they’re actually NOT arms – they’re noses? Imagine being able to grab, breathe, and suck up water all with the SAME BODY PART.

Weird.

But this newsletter isn’t actually about elephants.

It’s about the elephant in the room. You know the one.

And if you don’t, I’m talking about

✨ AI ✨

I’ve been putting off taking any kind of real stance on AI because there’s a LOT to it and I’ve been conflicted. I’m also guessing that pretty much everyone you’re following has already given their two cents on the whole situation, and you might be getting tired of hearing about it.

(If that’s you, friend, feel free to take this as your cue and I’ll be back next Wednesday with something fresh for ya 🙂 bc trust me I GET IT)

I’m not going to touch on the ethical and environmental concerns (of which there are many that I’m feeling increasingly icky about) in today’s newsletter, because it’s not something I feel educated enough about to speak on.

What I DO want to talk about is…

Is AI Making You Question Your Own Voice?

We’ve all seen how AI waters down the human voice. It’s PAINFULLY obvious when business owners are using it to create content from scratch because it all sounds so samesy.

The same cadence, the same phrases that are saying so much but also NOTHING at all, the way it tries to make everything into some big mic-drop moment.

I’ve steered clear from using AI to create FOR me, because I genuinely believe that what people are craving right now is real connection, real human voice, real perspective.

But what I have been using AI for is critiques. I’ll throw in a draft of something I’ve written and ask how it flows, where it’s missing context, and what improvements I could make.

When I first started doing this, I basically took everything it said as gospel. I defaulted to accepting its feedback the majority of the time (and lemme tell ya, it showed), because I thought it was correct.

Just think about that for a second: I THOUGHT A ROBOT KNEW BETTER THAN ME.

I let an AI bot convince me that it actually knew more than I did about what I wanted to convey, and that its “help” was making my message stronger.

Lol.

The thing about using AI for your content (even if you’re only using it minimally, like for feedback) is that if you’re not careful and reallyyyy discerning, it’s gonna critique you to death.

It’s going to convince you that the imperfect but unique parts of your voice and perspective are wrong, too left field, or won’t resonate.

When in actuality, these are *the* things that give you charm. That’ll set you apart from literally every other person in your industry talking about the same stuff, imitating each other’s voices, and pumping out AI content.

(!!) And sometimes the opposite ALSO happens – where AI hypes you up and convinces you that you’re an absolute genius prodigy of a person and everything you create is PERFECT and untouchable – leading you to develop a big ole ego and not think as critically about what you’re creating/whether you actually believe what you’re saying.

There is sooo much more I could say on this, but this newsletter would be a million miles long and we ain’t got all day.

So I’ll start wrapping ‘er up.

When I started trusting in my own voice and self and stopped constantly relying on AI to tell me if something was “good,” that’s when my business actually started to gain traction.

Every week, I make more (genuine!) connections on Threads, more people joining my email list, and more people interested in my offers.

Your voice, your unique perspective about your industry, the insights you’ve gained from personal experience — those are the things a robot can’t replicate.And they’re also the things that make people want to connect with and buy from you.

So PLEASE, for the love of all things: Don’t let a bot take your pizzazz away.

Put It Into Orbit 💫

If you regularly use AI for feedback when creating content, I want to challenge you this week to forgo it completely – I’ll join you!

I promise, you DON’T need a robot to tell you if something is truly helpful, up to your standard of quality, or “good.” You can figure that out on your own, with your own brain – and I’d be willing to bet you’ll leave in some great bits that AI would’ve scrubbed out if you would have used it.

Want More on This? 🤖

Alyssa at Amp’d Designs published an AMAZING blog post about what happens when you prompt AI for feedback. She actually took the Target logo and ran it through AI for several feedback rounds, and ended up with a comical final result (like it actually had me laughing because it was so much of a downgrade).

It’s written about design feedback specifically, but I think it applies to anything creative and should honestly be required reading for every online business owner 😂

You can read the blog post here – it’s 100% worth your time!