There is something just that bit off about writing produced by AI, and one of the obvious giveaways of synthetic text is a particular turn of phrase.

In the dystopian future depicted in Blade Runner, the only way of truly identifying synthetic humans – the kind that are cooked up in a lab – is via psychological testing administered by an expert such as the titular bounty hunter, Deckard (who may himself be a replicant, but that’s another story). Replicants, who are all somewhat NQR, cannot fudge or finesse the test.

It might just take a jeweller to pick the cubic zirconium from the real thing. Ersatz stones lack the integrity of the genuine article, regardless of how much they shine. Yet for the untrained eye it’s hard to tell the real from the fake. Knock-off designer handbags, however, usually shout their counterfeit status from a distance. And crocodile tears from toddlers can easily be intuited by parents practised in detecting crying on demand.

Synthetic writing also has its tells, and I am not the first to name them: a samey, homogenous hyperbolic tone, overuse of emojis, listing items in threes, employing the Oxford comma, favouring “whilst”* rather than “while” and use of the em dash (rather than the aesthetically superior en dash).**

Another telltale sign that AI has been used to generate or sharpen prose is use of reflexive phrases structured along the lines of “it’s not just this, it’s that”.

“More than fabric, denim is a living material—a companion that skates, refines and adapts over time.”

“This isn’t just an Olympic race, it’s a whole masterclass in life … Sometimes the smartest move isn’t chasing the crowd, it’s trusting your own pace.”

“GoPro wasn’t just a camera company, it was a movement.”

“That upbringing didn’t just influence his shooting form—it shaped the way he saw the entire game.”

“Negotiation isn’t about being difficult. It’s about showing up prepared and knowing your value.”

“This is more than a watch—it’s a piece of horological history you can wear with confidence, wherever your journey takes you.”

“The CS311 isn’t nostalgia dressed up—it’s evolution done right.”

“Sports doesn’t just shape performance, it can slow down aging.”

“At Earthen Co, we believe time is not just measured—it is experienced.”

“Literacy isn’t just about reading words on a page, it’s about reading deeply.”

“I’ve been using the em dash since 2008, when I was an undergrad writing literary analyses and falling in love with the art of language. It’s not an algorithmic quirk—it’s a stylistic choice … And while we’re at it—let’s remember that AI isn’t the enemy. It’s a tool. It can enhance creativity, not erase it.”

“Stepping away mid-week feels like pressing pause on all the noise … it’s not just about the work or the grind, it’s about creating moments that shape the bigger picture.”

“Great educators do more than deliver lectures. They spark curiosity, champion creative risk taking, and shape futures.”

“In engineering, your signature is not just a date on a drawing. It’s a guarantee. A guarantee that you value integrity over speed …”

“Events like these remind us that innovation isn’t just about technology, it’s about people, collaboration and purpose.”

“In reviving Thomas Mason, Albini hasn’t just preserved history – they’ve created a living testament to textile excellence.”

“This isn’t just a form-filling exercise—this is how we know if TGBC is doing what we set out to do. It’s how we measure the collective outcome of our impact— yours, mine, the whole chapter’s … This isn’t a feedback form. You’re reflecting on the club—on us— and what we’ve built together. Every response counts, and we need everyone on board.”

“A bad game, a missed promotion, or a poorly written article isn’t just a failure of performance—it’s a failure of self.”

It could be that not all of these examples have been generated by AI, but that they simply look, sound and feel like it, akin to someone who has real hair that resembles a toupee. Perhaps it’s a case of a style of writing and a method of expression that has become popular right now. It has entered the idiom, in the same manner that “leaning into” something has become de rigueur to say. Our language is dynamic, after all. Words come and go, or the meaning subtly changes over time.

I have no truck with the way in which “verses” is used as a verb – i.e., “My team is versing yours in today’s game” – but I suspect that this expression will likely have some resonance due to its common use among younger generations.

So yes, it’s possible Claude AI or ChatGPT didn’t spit out all of the phrases above, but I suspect they probably did. Synthetic writing has a particular sheen and rhythm to its manufactured cadences. It’s almost as if the words have been bent to fit a template. I can’t think of a reason, for instance, why a survey of a men’s book club couldn’t “just” be a survey. I mean, what else is it realistically going to be? There is no overarching authority the text can apply to so that it might alter its status. It’s just a fu*cking survey.

Which underscores another problem I have with this way of expressing things. Why can’t a watch simply be a watch? By implying that a watch need be anything more than a wrist instrument for telling the time (rather than, say, a piece of history or a horological artefact) is egregious. For something simply to be itself and nothing beyond that doesn’t diminish its status.

You know, I believe literacy is simply about reading words on a page, and the em dash is more than likely an algorithmic quirk, especially the way it is used by AI. Denim is just a fabric, and that’s OK. That’s what it was designed to be. Your jeans aren’t going to be offended because you referred to them as a pair of daks rather than a “living material”. And I reckon Go Pro was simply a camera company. What else could it be for crying out loud?

I can understand the temptation to use AI for everyday writing tasks. It’s just so easy, after all. Put in a few prompts and reams of copy come tumbling out, like tickertape in a 1940s noir. Writing that might hitherto have been jumbled or confused can now have a two-pack-like surface applied to it and buffed. That text, however, is not yours; it doesn’t sound like you (unless you’re a B-grade copywriter), and it doesn’t really express what you were trying to say. How can it? If you use Co-Pilot to smooth over your emails or to provide them with an authorial voice not your own, there’s a very real risk that your message will be misconstrued. Your voice belongs to you, and is not something that you should yield to a third party, let alone a lower power.

AI is powerful, no doubt. It can save an astonishing amount of time analysing data. It can help improve your golf swing or convert a mountain of stats into a spreadsheet. It can write code, synthesise information into reports, or spit out that correspondence you’ve been sitting on all day, and sound as ornery as you genuinely are.

So where to from here? We’re already living in an era described by The Atlantic Journal scribe Charlie Warzel as “the golden age of AI slop***”. So, perhaps consider not contributing to the muck, not putting your own version of “it’s not just this, it’s that” out into the ether.

AI scrapes the internet to stay current. But what if the vast majority of the examples from which it is learning are AI-generated? A hall of mirrors eventuates, where the copy LLMs generate is a tapestry of what has already come before. Surely we are above that. Is it really so hard to turn what you are thinking into words on a page?

I could write that using AI for creative purposes isn’t just a sloppy way of working, it’s a betrayal of our higher selves. Yet I won’t express my thoughts quite like that, because – well, you know why.

*Acerbic writer Martin Amis wrote, “Never use ‘whilst.’ Anyone who uses ‘whilst’ is subliterate.”

**I’ve never liked the em dash. Never had much truck with it. The em dash – so-called because it shares dimensions with the base of the alphabet’s 13^th letter – always strikes me as over-specced for the task at hand. It’s just a bit much. That said, I understand not every instance of its use indicates the dark handiwork of AI. Although it has greatly diminished in use in Australia over the past 30 years (the time I have spent as a professional writer, editor and sub-editor) it has never gone out of fashion in the US. It is part of the house style for Air Mail, the New York Times and The Atlantic Journal among other venerable publications. James Joyce and Emily Dickinson were said to be fans of the punctuation device, making it part of their respective style. Jon Hamm and Sofia Coppola have come to its defence. Yet I hadn’t seen an em dash used in corporate correspondence for years until a recent stint working for an organisation where the use of AI as a productivity tool was strongly encouraged, if not mandated. Now the em dash is downright ubiquitous, used by individuals who wouldn’t know an em dash from an en dash, hyphen or interrobang. I blame Claude AI, Chat GPT and those who feel compelled to use them.

***”Slop” is the Merriam-Webster Dictionary 2025 Word of the Year. The lexicon defines “slop” as “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.”