Is personal writing style going the way of cursive?
In a world of predictive text and GPTs, could it be that we’re among the last generation to grow up developing a unique, personal writing style?
I have a nephew named Jett who’s 9 months old. (Keep reading for a pic of humanity’s most adorable baby.) Over Jett’s adolescence, predictive text driven by large language models will become deeply embedded in our everyday lives.
Getting AI-powered, real-time writing feedback and suggestions in word processors will be beyond commonplace. Jett will never know life without it.
Email clients will rapidly move past auto-completing paragraphs and entire messages based on context and history, to simply writing and responding on our behalf. Jett will not have to enter the workforce like his auntie, wondering “how do I write a corporate email?”
Constantly being served predictive text choices based on large language models will lead to society making a collective shift away from human creation to AI generation + human training and selection. Because it’s easier to choose from a list or to ask a GPT than it is to generate original content, our relationship to expressive language will become increasingly editorial and curatorial.
Here’s my big concern: by continually referencing and refining large language models outside ourselves, we will stop developing and evolving the ones within ourselves. And, overall, our reference inputs and expressive outputs will become increasingly homogenized.
What’s at stake is idiosyncrasy and originality.
At Apple, I saw a team whose work became increasingly self-referential. To them, Apple was the be-all, end-all of inspiration and aspiration. I describe this mindset as “breathing your own exhaust.” And, unsurprisingly, it doesn’t lead anywhere interesting. (They never shipped anything.)
Homogeneity is playing out in realtime verbal expression. With the rise of social media and an increasingly mobile population, accents are experiencing a stylistic regression towards a “general American accent” modeled by news anchors (and originally inspired by white, upper-middle-class men).
Look at what’s happened in Texas over the last 50 years: “Back in the 1980s, about 80% of Texans interviewed by researchers at UT Austin, including many students, had traditional Texas accents. Now that’s down to a third.”
Don’t get me wrong: this Kansan ain’t no AI naysayer. I use and find value in many AI tools. But I do believe we’re witnessing the genesis of a profound expressive shift.
Persistent and pervasive exposure to writing auto-completion from an early age across many contexts means that AI feedback loops will be shaping the development and expression of future generations. These models will essentially be “co-writers” throughout the iterative process of developing one’s linguistic voice.
There’s a real danger that this path of least resistance — opting for the “safe” AI-generated options, gradually constraining expression into statistical norms represented in training data — comes at the expense of idiosyncratic flair.
And while, yes, it’s possible that AIs can be tailored to develop, extend, or remix an individual’s unique stylistic fingerprint, if users don’t go out of their way to make these creative choices, Jett and all the rest of us are headed towards a boring, bland world filled with a lot of beige language.
On the other hand, there’s the intriguing possibility that as AI-generated language becomes commoditized, true human-crafted language could go up in value. Could it be that truly original, human-crafted communication will become increasingly sought after?
In a future where most emails, articles, and social posts are AI-generated, I believe consumers hungry for genuine connection and original ideas will actively seek out writers, thought leaders, and brands known for their unique style and perspective.
This could lead to a renaissance of “artisanal writing” — small-batch, handcrafted works that command a premium. We may see the emergence of niche writing collectives, where members pay for access to exclusive, human-authored content. Or perhaps “certified human-written” (CHW™) becomes a selling point for books, articles, and scripts.
There may even be a resurgence of “slow communication” movements, where people intentionally unplug from AI-powered tools to engage in deep, meaningful exchanges. Writing retreats, workshops, and apps designed to facilitate distraction-free human writing could all thrive.
Of course, this bifurcation of machine-generated and human-crafted language could also exacerbate socioeconomic divides. Will only the privileged classes get to enjoy the luxury of original human writing, while the masses make do with AI? Ensuring equitable access to linguistic diversity will not be easy.
Ultimately, in a world where AI writing is the default, those who cultivate and preserve the art of original expression will wield outsized influence. They will be our innovators, trendsetters, and leaders shaping our cultural conversation. If there’s one thing I hope to impart you and Jett, it’s that the allure of unique ideas, compellingly conveyed, will never go out of style — and that’s something we should all celebrate and defend.
Anita Stubenrauch is the author of Apple’s Credo and the founder of Cause:Effect Creative, an advisory service for visionary entrepreneurs and brands. She’s also the host of the Hyperactive Imagination podcast, a high-voltage channel for creativity.
