dehumanisation
noun
The process of depriving a person or group of positive human qualities.
“the consequences of systematic dehumanization of one racial group in a society can be horrific”
I was looking at LinkedIn this morning. I don’t spend so much time on social media these days because it can be a bit of rabbit warren. Amidst the family and friend updates, on FB for instance, there are funny videos, and content designed to suck you in and waster your time. I’m not playing that game.
And whilst LinkedIn is the more business oriented social platform, it too has become often trivial of late.
So this morning I decided to spend a little more of my time than usual reading the feed on LinkedIn rather than just checking my InMail.
First Post
The first post I saw from a connection was a question about how his clients had failed to provide any feedback. This was followed by a list of reasons why a lack of transparency and feedback is not great. The list consistent of around half a dozen very valid points – It could have been generated by AI, but there’s also the possibility that it wasn’t. I couldn’t tell. And it wasn’t labelled as such.
But the fact that I hadn’t seen this person post in a while, that I don’t really know their written tone of voice, and that this was a very logical and succinct list, just made me think of the output I recognise when I use AI to generate content ideas.
There was a grammatical error in the opening sentence, but the rest of the post looked like it could have been AI generated.
If it wasn’t then, Simon – I’m sorry 🙂
Next Post
Then I saw a post from another connection declaring that, in the interests of transparency, he was now using AI to generate some of his content in LinkedIn. The post read:
“As someone who values transparency, I wanted to share that my LinkedIn content is no longer just created by me. I’m now personally (not automatically) co-creating my posts with AI to improve my writing ability and provide better-informed content.
However, please note that my posts will always contain my personal touch and will never be 100% AI generated.
Thank you for your continued support!”
My initial thought was one of horror. This is a person whom I respect and admire. They started in digital at the same time that I had and they are now in a vaulted position, winning at life and in business. I have always really valued what they’ve had to say.
And now?
Whatever they post on LinkedIn might now not be them. What I read will not be them, not their thoughts, not their logic, not their… character.
And all because it saves them 90% of the time it takes to write a LinkedIn post, “improve their writing ability” and “provide better-informed content”.
- When AI writes your posts, how can that improve your ability to write? AI is doing the writing.
- As for the content being “better informed”…?! My contact is an expert, and has a wealth of experience. How can an LLM have a greater understanding of things than this person does?
I was very tempted to respond directly with the thoughts above, but that would have been a bit too epic a reply.
So I did something else. I asked Microsoft Copilot what my response to his post would be. Mixing up the AI generated output with my own writing, the response to my LinkedIn friend was:
“I asked AI what my response would be to your post and it suggested I would say that embracing AI as a co-creator is a forward-thinking move! It’s great to see you leveraging technology to enhance your content while maintaining your personal touch. I’m looking forward to seeing how your posts evolve with this hybrid approach. Keep up the innovative work!
For the sake of continued transparency this response was also not 100% AI generated and part of this reply had a human element too.”
We’ll see if that gets a reply from the author or any of the other commenters.
Yes, Dehumanisation
With all the conflict in the world today, the term dehumanisation is far more applicable to more appropriate yet horrific situations. But in response to an AI generated LinkedIn post the term is also justified, just not in quite the same manner.
The human element of the post has been diminished. There is less human and more AI in the post. And that made me think – do I really want to read it now? If there is 10% Spencer in the post and 90% AI, then what is the value in what I’m reading? Why should I reply? Why should I engage? What is the point in engaging? Hasn’t the human on the other side of the post stood down now?
Also, I was thinking, that if the poster is trying to save 90% of their time then why? Why not post 90% less? Or is there a need to maintain posting to “play the algorithms”? Has the saying
“Speak because you have something to say, not because you have to say something”
now been completely ignored? Does the alure and quantity of regular posts, clicks, comments, and status now trump the value of the rare quality post?
I have never posted much on LinkedIn because I have so much to say and not a lot of time to post it. Plus, I feel that often what I have to say may “go against the grain”. I have a positive mindset and a very driven attitude, but I feel that highlighting negatives as things to avoid in pursuit of excellence may not 1) be to everyone’s taste, nor 2) be algorithm friendly and 3) I do not have time to spend in discussing so much on social media when there is such limited time on this earth. I want to make as much of what I say valuable, make it count.
It’s better for my personal circumstances to “sound off” into the void in a personal capacity here on my personal blog, and merely allow these points to be found rather than forcing the issue and making them daily talking points on a wildly busy social media platform. I don’t want the attention, says the marketing manager. I specialise in getting YOU attention, not me. That’s what I get paid for,
So, before you use AI to save you time on your next post, before you use it to provide a “better informed” response than you could ever do, just stop for a moment and think…
Is that you? Or is that not you posting?
Who are the respondents replying to? You? Or a machine?
What’s the point in having conversations with machines? Or should we just also take that attitude and use machines to respond to machines so that us humans can all just mind our own business?
End Note
As a marketer I have spent 26 years in SEO in a personal capacity and 24 years in a professional one. Every time some fad or technology turns up, and people use it to be lazy with their web content, there’s often a backlash.
In 2008 we had a sequence of high-profile, hard-hitting Google algorithm updates that dealt with link spam and content spam.
In 2023 we saw the “helpful content updates”.
Now, in 2024 we have seen the Google March update, and it addressed “scaled content abuse” and “site reputation abuse”.
Every time people try to game the system, people program machines to look for people using machines to lure and spellbind more people.
It’s a funny old new world.
Leave a Reply