Caught myself using AI to write a sympathy card last week and felt gross

I was drafting a condolence message for my neighbor who lost his dog, and I literally opened ChatGPT to help me phrase it. Halfway through the AI generated response about 'cherished memories' and 'furry companion', I just stopped. It hit me that I was outsourcing basic human empathy to an algorithm for convenience. My neighbor deserved something real, even if it was clumsy and poorly written. Who else has caught themselves letting AI handle stuff that should be personal? What's your line for where you refuse to use it?

2 comments

2 Comments

grantadams6d ago

Man it's wild how this stuff creeps in, I noticed I was using AI to rewrite texts to friends to sound more clever when I used to just send whatever came to mind. Feels like we're slowly handing over the little human moments that keep us connected.

felixfisher6d ago

Think about what happens when you use AI to rewrite your texts. You're basically letting the bot decide what version of you shows up to your friends. You're curating your own personality on the fly. So next time you're hanging out and one of them says "hey that's not what you texted me" you have to either laugh it off or explain that a machine helped you fake being wittier. It gets messy real quick. I watched a buddy do this for like two months and his friends started joking that he sounded like a motivational poster. He had to unlearn all the phrasing the AI taught him.