Tweet by ritakozlov

July 23, 2026

been thinking about what makes ai writing so glaring that it’s hard to unsee even when edited down some of it is the emdashes, the lack of typos and imperfections and the repetitive longwinded nature. and the little formatting idiosyncrasies we’ve picked up “it’s not foo, it’s bar.” but i don’t think that’s all of it i review a lot of writing at work: a lot of public and internal blog posts, problem statement docs, PRDs, presentations even there’s this thing that happens, especially with junior folks. they assume that they need to sound “professional”. this is what we teach at school: start with a hook, 5 paragraph essay, use big words to sound smart, length requirements over brevity even before AI this fascinating thing would happen where i would get something to review that would sound like joey’s letter from friends. every word has been replaced with a thesaurus definition to the point of being incomprehensible the result was always jarring and unreadable at first. then i’d ask them to put down what they wrote and say it in their own words. now it would sound normal, and importantly, like them! it reminds me that we trained ai to be this way. AI is merely a reflection of what we’ve taught it and of course it’s not just junior people. if you’re not used to writing, it’s intimidating! it requires staring at a blank sheet of paper and scrutinizing words and ideas as they come to you. it’s easy to reach for the cheat code this is all to say what’s been said before: in an era of AI slop, lean into your voice and your authenticity. let it be choppy and imperfect and expressive and quirky (and personal!). i’m actually not saying “don’t use AI” to help you write. i myself reach for it quite often — it’s a helpful rubber duck (btw i typed that em dash myself ty). but don’t forget that your voice is unique to you and what makes the writing good. don’t let ai rip out the best part

Author
ritakozlov
Date
July 23, 2026
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