This is not the post I planned to publish today. I had an awesome article drafted and almost ready to go. Until I got to the revision portion of writing it…

I used artificial intelligence yesterday to revise the article meant to be published today. I’m intentionally using the full phrase—artificial intelligence—here instead of the more popular acronym AI. It's too easy for the AI acronym to fly under the radar of scrutiny; it too easily glosses over the fact that it is artificial.

As I let it take hold of my words and restring them in a snappier way—a way that was much better than I could have produced on my own—I oscillated between amazement and a sense of emptiness that I can't quite name (though I'm sure AI would have no problem naming it for me).

Artificial Intelligence sharpened my argument and made the sentences grow teeth that would bite back at any reader who would dare disagree with what it said. But could I still call the article mine? It was my arguments, and my passion for the topic laced throughout. But each time I accepted an edit that made my sentences tighter—and with how I write, sentences tend to meander and sometimes bury the lede—I gave away more and more of my voice. What I got back were sentences that almost sounded like me.

Reading what the AI spat back was like if my voice had taken a corporeal form and stood before a fun house mirror. The reflection AI gave was my voice, but warped. Or maybe I'm giving my own writer's voice too much credit and need to rework the metaphor. Perhaps my voice, and by extension, me, is the warped corporeal form looking into the mirror, and the reflection that artificial intelligence gave back was an oddly perfect version of me, with the bumps smoothed out.

Looking at what the tech seemed to turn me into gave me a sense of déjà vu, of the early days of social media and adding filters to photos. Remember when you would post a picture of yourself in the early days of Facebook, but would airbrush your skin so much that you looked like a ghost? A perfect, smooth, glowing ghost. When I read what AI did to my words, it was a lot like that. Like a filter on a selfie that buffed out all the imperfections, but this time, artificial intelligence buffed out the imperfections of my bad syntax and metaphors that didn't quite land.

An author I admire, who writes about making time for what is important to you (though we're all only going to live a depressingly short time), is also on Substack and just this morning posted a note about how LLMs (Large Language Models) are a lot like the early days of social media. It ties in perfectly to how I felt yesterday, so I couldn't help but include it here:

I originally tried using artificial intelligence to revise the article because it felt so bloated and meandering.

But, there was a rush to get this article out this week: I titled it "Phallic Panic: Trans Women and the Shattering of the Masculinity Myth." It was a perfect article to post this week: (1) because it is Pride Month and busting the manufactured panic about trans women and bathrooms and sports is critical to do now; (2) the main metaphor I used throughout the article was how the mere existence of trans people acted as a mirror to toxic masculinity, with the cracks in the mirror becoming unavoidable as trans women continued to share their stories and continued to stay visible. That metaphorical mirror to toxic masculinity worked beautifully after just renaming my Substack last week to Through the Mythic Glass.

The arguments in the article were great: I used mythological and historical examples of how our current patriarchal society was born of thousands of years of tying power to a man's virility and how that system is a house of cards. Trans women are the gust of wind that is finally about to blow the house down, but there is a fierce and vitriolic attempt from the patriarchy to avoid that gust of wind. The patriarchy would do anything rather than tear the house of cards down to rebuild a more stable structure.

Yesterday, in an attempt to de-bloat this article that seemed to quickly spin out of control, I shrugged and was like, maybe this is a decent reason to try AI? But when I did, the artificial intelligence ventured off so far from me that I didn't think I could find my way back to my voice.

I wanted a quick fix, and AI was there to suck my words in like a voracious black hole, filter them, and spit back sentences all shiny and polished. I wanted a quick fix, and that's exactly what I got when AI revised my article.

But like with most quick fixes, there was no real depth — just surface-level polish that gleamed and dazzled. My initial reaction was to be taken in by the dazzling polish AI put on my work. But as I sat with it for a few hours, the gleam from the polish began to dim, and I was left hollow.

Reflecting on it now, it seems obvious. Anything that is surface-level, even if it is shiny, polished, and without imperfections, is still only surface. There is no muscle underneath.

But that's the problem when we look into the mirror and only care about what the mirror reflects. When we focus on only what's on the outside, spending all our time and energy making ourselves look beautiful, we neglect the human residing within the surface-level skin.

When I depended on artificial intelligence to revise the article, it was like I was standing before the mirror, focused only on applying makeup that perfectly leveled out my pores and evened out my skin tone. But I didn't bother looking at the person beneath what others could see.

After AI revised my article, all that was left was an artificial version of me and my words. At first, I liked it—it was snappy and easy on the eyes. But just like when I wear a lot of makeup, at some point, I have to use makeup remover on my skin and be okay with what's left after the makeup is gone. I have to be okay with the oversized pores and uneven skin.

When I'm alone with a notebook and no tech, I need to be okay with meandering sentences and incorrect syntax.

So here I am, with you, wiping away that makeup used on my words, hoping that what is left is still an impactful message. This post may not shine as dazzlingly as what I almost posted, but it’s not clogged with makeup from artificial intelligence. What you see here is a reflection of the version I see in the mirror.

—Monica

P.S. Well, after a spell check, of course. I at least want to make sure there are no bulbous pimples prominently on display!

P.P.S. Phallic Panic: Trans Women and the Shattering of the Masculinity Myth is an article I still want to publish this month. But I need to go back to my outline and rewrite the entire thing from scratch.

Maybe it will turn into a series, or maybe I’ll finally figure out how to de-bloat the article on my own. Either way, what will be posted will be what I wrote.

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