3 Examples of Bad AI Writing and How to Fix Them

The danger isn’t that we will drown in bad writing. It’s that we’ll get so used to “good enough” that we forget how to recognize anything better.

In a recent essay, Linda Carroll raised a point worth sitting with: maybe we should stop panicking about AI. After all, most of the writing it produces is fine — unremarkable, serviceable, the kind of thing an editor would accept without raising an eyebrow.

She’s right. And that’s exactly what worries me.

To show you what I mean, Linda gave three examples of passable, and even “clever” AI-written prose.

It’s the clever part where we disagree.

Linda writes:

“MY PROMPT: Write an essay about a woman who gets lost in the forest and realizes the forest is a metaphor for her fears, for how much she’s afraid of. Write in first person, 500 words, using human sounding text but not too flowery

Opener 1: Claude

I should have turned back when the path disappeared. That’s what a smart person would have done. But I kept walking, pushing through branches that scratched at my arms, stepping over roots that seemed to grab my ankles. The canopy grew…