Lately, I've been more active on the more tech-savvy parts of the internet. It feels like every other post on LinkedIn, Reddit and any other platform with wide outreach is written by AI. The concept could have come from a human, but they gave the prompt to an AI which spits out a combination of words that are perfect in all regards. The more high-effort ones wrote it themselves and asked AI to edit it until they get a flawless result.
However, I don't think perfect posts are meant for social media.
You can have perfect pitch decks, written by the best AIs and product specialists and that, if a bit artificial, is valid.
As a Gen-Z that grew up essentially plugged into the Matrix and social media, I find that it's lost that feel of genuine connection that social media used to provide. The grammar in posts weren't perfect, but that was alright. Every single flaw and caveat gave someone a distinct voice. Like it was actually someone that knew stuff but could make mistakes, which sparked debates and arguments that spanned days. With the advent of AI and the average content creator's perfectionism, it resulted in an endless feedback loop of determining what kind of post is acceptable, or at least gives off the impression of being acceptable.
I'm an advocate for AI-assisted coding, as it lets me do more in less time, but polishing every single post, every single comment and fact checking everything, quite frankly, seems wildly unnecessary.
It feels like every single post, even if it's multiple paragraphs, deserved only a couple sentences that should read like logs.
Or maybe it's just my desire to keep in touch with acquaintances, know what's going on with them without the hassle of a dedicated chat session. Maybe there's a niche for this kind of social media in this day and age, not very much for engagement or interaction, but simply a collection of messages and images that's essentially an infinitely expanding group chat.
Or maybe I just miss when Facebook used to be about connection, not content creation and how you could extract as much value out of it as possible. Quite frankly, I don't remember the last time I've had a chain of posts longer than 3 that consisted of only posts of people I follow, all of it broken apart by posts offered by the algorithm until... you're caught up and then you keep on scrolling to see what everyone else in the world is on about.
Back in the day, you would just reach the end and decide to get off the website, but that's not what the big companies want! They want you to keep using the app so they can feed you more ads! That let them offer you content made by content creators that you would most likely like, which draws you in deeper until you stop using social media for connection with people you know in favor of consuming the content that social media companies want to feed you, which creates an entire class of people who solely live off of content creation. I am not vilifying them, but simply stating that it can sustain a group of people who can keep doing it for a living.
Back then, there used to be a difference between websites that you used to talk to people about your interests or work, and websites that you use between family, but the latter has simply faded into obscurity or has gradually drifted to the former to become a super-social-media; or outright mutated into something else.
Back to my first point!
Perfect posts somewhat make sense in the social media you use to connect with family, because you want to show off your highlights. That's good and fine, but why would you want to remove your voice and become a concept to them? They're people you know, so why pretend?
They don't make any sense at all when it comes to social media you use to connect with people that share the same interests as you. You're there to interact, to converse and more importantly, connect or learn some things you haven't done before. What does generating that content with AI achieve?
Then comes social media you use to connect with people, like LinkedIn and some forums. They're essentially job boards where you can track someone's posts to their CV and figure out if they're cool or not. What's the point in cheapening your credibility by showing that you don't trust in yourself to articulate what you know?
I'd fallen into the trap of assuming that AI-edited content would be more appropriate for CVs and LinkedIn, but now, after seeing so many people surrender their entire personalities and even refer to themselves in third person like lunatics, I feel a sense of utter disgust that can't be explained with words. So much so, that I went back and rewrote all my posts with my own words, assisted by only the squiggly red lines under words that your browser forces on you.
This rant was spontaneously spawned when I came across a before/after UI comparison of Facebook and Instagram, and perhaps the slightly neurodivergent train of thought that it spurred.