In March 2026, the New York Times ran a quiz where readers picked AI-written passages over human ones.
My first reaction wasn’t outrage or awe. It was a long, tired “yeah… that tracks.”
Not because I think machines have suddenly developed a soul.
But because I’ve spent enough years reading things online to know most writing
isn’t exactly brimming with one to begin with.
We like to pretend there’s this sacred line between “human
writing” and everything else, as if every article comes straight from someone’s
inner life … messy, vivid, earned. But a lot of it? It’s just clean sentences
doing their job. Functional. Like airport signage. Nobody cries over Gate B12.
So when people say readers couldn’t tell the difference, I
don’t hear “AI has arrived.” I hear: “Most writing was already halfway
there.”
And honestly, the results make perfect sense. If you strip
away the author’s name, the publication, the little halo of credibility we like
to place over certain bylines, what’s left?
Rhythm. Clarity. Momentum.
AI is very good at those things. It’s like a cover band that
never misses a note. Tight. Polished. Slightly eerie if you stare too long.
But here’s the part that interests me more: the gap between
factual and opinion writing. People preferred AI for the clean, informational
stuff, but it lost ground when things got personal.
Of course it did. Because information is about getting
somewhere. Opinion is about having been somewhere.
And you can feel that difference, even if you can’t always
articulate it. It’s the difference between a map and a story about getting
lost.
The problem is, a lot of modern writing, especially online, doesn’t
really do either. It hovers in this strange middle zone. Competent.
Inoffensive. About as memorable as a receipt.
That’s the writing AI is quietly replacing. Not the
brilliant stuff. Not the strange, voicey, slightly unhinged essays that make
you stop and reread a sentence just to see how it was built.
It’s replacing the middle.
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