AIBU to wish people would stop writing professional emails with Chat GPT?

[4pmfireworks]

One of my managers writes absolutely everything with Chat GPT and as a result, all her emails are oddly formal and often get people's backs up. The tone is all wrong. I don't think she realises how badly she is coming across - and most of the team don't realise that the reason her communication is so lacking warmth and human touch is because she's telling AI what she wants to say.

She even once sent an email to me to let me know that "Marie Jones (your team leader) will advise you on this matter separately." Oh, THAT Marie Jones?! My team leader?! The one who I share an office with?! Thank God you included her surname and clarified her role or I would not have had a clue which Marie (the only one who works with us) you were talking about.

I've just had a general class update from my child's teacher that has been written with Chat GPT - I guess it saves time and I don't really blame him, but I do find it cringy. Once you spot it, it's so obvious. I would be embarrassed to send it.

I should add that I'm not always entirely sure why it's obviously written by AI. The adjectives are a bit off I think. And the sentence structure is recognisably formulaic and always rather longer than a human tends to write.

If you do this at work, you should know that some of the recipients know exactly what you're doing, and it doesn't look great.

I had a PhD student, writing in her third language, ask me if it would be ok to use ChatGPT to write an abstract, provided that the arguments, information and citations in it all came from the student. I responded that the problem is that the student would then still need to edit and massage the abstract into shape, and in order to be able to do that, would have to be competent at this editing. To be competent at the editing/rewriting, the student would have to be competent at actually writing abstracts, and to acquire that competence...would have to write a bunch of abstracts, at which point it would probably be faster and easier just to keep writing them oneself.

I'm sure AI can help save time for people who are already competent at doing the thing they are asking AI for help with. The problem is that if you use it from the outset, you don't actually acquire the skills that some people who say, "just use it and edit it" are taking for granted.

I've seen similar short-sightedness in other areas of curriculum development, where some professors will say, "we don't need this skill in the curriculum any more, because modern blablabla...", while seeming completely oblivious to the fact that they have these skills at such a high level that it seems as natural as breathing to them, they probably don't remember learning them, and have lost track of just how much the skills inform every aspect of their work.

A mixture of blandness, off syntax, unlikely word choices, stiltedness and trite platitudes.

Google AI detectors. You can paste the text into them and they'll tell you what % they think is AI or not.

It's not very accurate though. I've been running some of my own writing through it out of curiosity and it's been flagged as AI. Maybe I'm just naturally robotic.

I remember someone saying we should train the bots to tick those recaptcha "I am a human" tickboxes you get on websites - because isn't that exactly the sort of boring, mechanical job we invented them for?

I would challenge you to learn more about what AI is truly capable of. You’d be impressed.

And your comment isn’t correct. Proficiency in Microsoft applications is now a prerequisite of all office jobs. Ability to use excel to write macro’s was once a sort after skill in some professions. The time will soon be upon us when AI use & understanding is a requirement of the best paying roles.

I heard those recaptcha boxes were part of training the bots. No idea if it's true, but remember hearing someone say that.

I use AI extensively in my job, although I do then take time to edit and 'humanise' text as necessary.

Even with an hour's editing time on top, it's still faster than writing a presentation or formal pitch from scratch.

I see it as a useful additional tool rather than the be all and end all.

Brisk is a perfectly appropriate word in this context.

You may be thinking of brusque? which also describes language, but is a different word, and a tone that few people would deliberately aim for.

But you still start to recognise the same tell tale comments/sentences that just sound "weird" however much you tell it to be informal or succinct, etc. I spot it a mile off. More so that most people I have email exchanges with are people I also meet in real life. There's usually a real difference in how they speak, talk and interact when they're in front of you, compared with their supposedly "informal" emails. It's SO obvious when you know what you're looking for.

Like the building firm owner who always comes into the office with a greeting of "Hi Jane" but his emails always start "hope you are well and safe". When you first see that greeting you just think they're being a bit weird, but when you start to see it regularly, you realise it's AI! No one would say that in real life in this country at the moment!

You can also spot to paragraph and sentence structure, bullet points, introduction and summary etc., even on supposedly "informal" emails.

It really is obvious when you start to know what you're looking for.

As I understand it, the point of those tick boxes is more to do with how you move the cursor rather than being able to actually tick a box.

I heard that the 'select all the boxes with traffic lights' type ones were part of training driverless cars.

macros. Would AI pick that error up?

We had a whole stack of job applications written by AI. They would start off “I would be a perfect fit for the role of project manager at X as my experience and skills aligns with your requirements. I have 10 years of experience as a project manager in Y sector, working on a diverse range of projects.” Then you would look at their career history and they would list a job as front of house in a hotel or as a carer for 6 months. The sheer number of applicants claiming to have 10 years of experience when you could see that they had either had no relevant experience or they had only graduated this year was ridiculous.

That's the joke.

Just checking. I’m not very familiar with AI but getting the point now!

Congratulations on identifying a typo 👏🏼

Yes, probably. But as I typed this manually, auto correct did not.

Wonderful use of bold font though - bravo!

Brisk means ‘active and energetic’ and refers to physical movement, such as a walk. Many people misuse it because it sounds similar to ‘brusque’ which means abrupt when used in relation to speech and is usually intended to convey rudeness/offhandedness. Ie, ‘brisk’ was incorrectly used in your example.

Nope, but many of my students don't care about getting a good mark. They just want to pass.

Brisk is perfectly fine to describe speech. It means, well, "brisk". Not actively rude like "brusque", but businesslike and lacking in extraneous fluff.

ChatGPT wouldn't invent a work history unless the user told it to. If they're claiming to have 10 years' experience then that's their own invention.

@CautiousLurker1 yes, I understand that. I was asking the poster though, who seemed to have a problem understanding it, possibly confusing it with brusque, and ironically ending up looking daft when trying to point a finger at another poster!

Not unreasonable. ChatGPT writing is repetitive and empty. Ick.

Learn something new every day!

But then why bother doing anything? Isn’t your job to learn and know about things. As an academic expert in a niche subject, chat gtp which I’ve checked out of interest and seen students use - is also wildly inaccurate.

Its those who CBA changing the American spellings/terms into British. Then words that don't follow.

Generally I can hear the person's voice when reading anything.