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Last year, when and a book writer Laura Brooke Robson began writing Love Is An Algorithm-a love story between the cofounder of AI dating app is a musician trying to survive in the age of Major languages-he was very careful not to sound like an AI himself.
He wrote sentences that he doubts he would have tried before the LLMs came along, avoiding what he called “disruptive metaphors,” and took “a more devious approach to avoid a generic list or a triple list.”
Since the spread of LLMs, Robson says his writing has changed dramatically, becoming a deliberate counterpoint to what he sees as AI’s instability.
“I feel like I don’t type,” he said. “I have a desire to make a little mistake, like to point the reader in the eye, to show that there is a person behind the words.” Like: What if I just made up words?
Robson is part of a large group of writers practicing what might be called an anti-AI style. In the field of journalism, criticism, and creative writing, especially among the compelling LinkedIn profiles, writers are turning to choices that resist the trappings of AI-generated prose.
This style is a system of resistance, often for automatic AI, such as lists of three, silent words, not x but yand em lines. But it also prizes idiosyncrasy as its central point, delving into the first-person realism and parallels that mark the writing’s rightful difficulty.
“I think AI can revolutionize technology education,” says Robson. “It seems to me that science fiction will move forward to the exotic, the esoteric, where the custom takes over commercial fiction.”
Across the publishing world, AI claims have plagued writers. In March, Hachette released Mia Ballard’s horror novel Shy Girl after suggestions circulated online that its author made extensive use of AI, which he denied. Ballard, who says he has a new record coming, had to start over. “Having my writing be real and authentic is the most important thing for me,” he says, adding that he edits his writing because he says the editor he hired ran the book through an AI program. “This is what first bit me in the ass.” Hachette did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Likewise, Steven Rosenbaum’s book The Future of Truthan investigation into “how AI is changing reality,” was said to include many articles created by AI, which Rosenbaum later admitted was true.
Ellena Savage, an Australian novelist and academic whose voice is limited to complex sentences inspired by Victorian literature, says she’s “absolutely dismayed by the idea of chatbots.” “The AI has stolen a few of my favorite conventions. I miss using the em dash. I miss the rule of three, which was satisfying. Now the rule of two? Five? Seven? 10?”
Across magazines and digital media, this anti-AI trend is reshaping the style of the house and the editorial process. Richard Fisher, emeritus professor at University College London and editor of the online culture magazine Aeon, says AI has enabled him to encourage writers to “be more human” and write more in conversation. “We don’t want to mess it up, because AI can’t write words that sound like humans. Writers may not want to change their behavior, but some may be forced to.”
Mano Sundaresan became Pitchfork’s editor-in-chief in July 2024, at a time when LLMs were gaining popularity. From where he blogged, he encouraged writers “to their voice,” which he says, in retrospect, “could have come from this AI.” He and his fellow editors sent a memo to editors stating that no AI could be used in the review, and encouraging first-person views. (Pitchfork is owned by Condé Nast, which also owns WIRED.)
