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[ARTICLE · art-14573] src=simonwillison.net pub= topic=generative-ai verified=true sentiment=↓ negative

Quoting Paul Graham

Investor Paul Graham said he immediately ignores emails from founders that appear to be written by AI, noting that the "hard-hitting journalistic style" is a clear giveaway. Graham stated he has never finished reading an AI-generated email signed by a human, calling the practice deceptive and damaging to the sender's credibility.

read1 min publishedMay 26, 2026

A lot of the emails I get from founders are now written in a hard-hitting journalistic style. I know they're written by AI, because no founder ever wrote this way before. And once you realize something is written by AI, it's hard not to ignore it.

I have never knowingly finished reading an email signed by a human but written by AI. It feels like being lied to, and who would stand for that?

[ [...]] It makes me think less of the author. It means they can't write well unaided (or feel they can't), and that they're trying to trick me.It's not impressive to use AI to write stuff for you; any teenager can do that.

Tags: writing, ai-misuse, paul-graham, generative-ai, ai, llms

source & further reading
simonwillison.net — original article Quoting Corey Quinn Notes on Pope Leo XIV's encyclical on AI datasette-agent 0.1a4
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