This is the sort of experience underlying my thesis that the arc of AI bends toward demoralization.

These anecdotes tend to include some version of the sentiment “it feels pointless to continue,” and I encounter them across a wide swath of the human experience touched by AI, although, of course, it is not a universal sentiment.

Specifically with regard to AI writing, though, this sentiment reflects an important fact that I think is under-appreciated, and that is how much we are driven by a desire for connection and community. We implicitly presume the presence of another person at the other end of language, and what we desire most deeply from a human interaction, even when it is mediated through the written word, is not merely information but connection. When we suspect that such connection is altogether off the table, we lose interest.