People keep posting those “how to spot AI writing” checklists and I swear… they’re just describing my daily workflow.
So either I’m a robot or those lists are just missing the point.
I’m going with option two.
Let me show you why this is actually funny.
1) Single sentence paragraphs
This one actually made me smile. You know why? Because this is how you control pacing. One thought. One beat. Then you move on.
Halbert did it. Schwartz did it. Anyone who’s ever sold anything with words did it because it works like a pause in conversation. When a comedian holds the mic and says nothing for two seconds – that silence IS the joke. Same principle here.
Now compare that to this:
The thing about writing online is that most people don’t really think about structure at all – they just kind of dump their thoughts into a text box and hit publish, and the problem isn’t that their ideas are bad, most of the time the ideas are actually fine. The problem is that everything runs together into this giant wall of text that nobody wants to read because your brain can’t find a place to rest. There’s no rhythm, no pause, no signal that says ‘this part matters,’ and by the time you get to the actual point you’ve already lost half your audience because they scrolled past it three seconds ago.
Same thing with “throat clearers”:
- “Let me be clear.”
- “Here’s the thing.”
- “Listen.”
People love to hate those. I love to use them. Those phrases are attention resets. Little speed bumps that tell you: “Hey. Pay attention. Something good is coming.”
I’ve used a couple already. Am I AI?
Here’s the catch though. (That’s another one.)
Those phrases earn their rent ONLY if what comes next actually delivers. If not, they just highlight disappointment.
“Here’s what nobody tells you about productivity” → followed by “wake up at 5 AM.” Oh wow. Groundbreaking. Thanks, but no thanks.
Now flip it:
“Here’s what nobody tells you about productivity” → followed by a twist that shifts how you think. Like “The more you obsess over optimizing your systems, the less actual work you do.”
Now we’re talking. That stings. Feels wrong. Makes you rethink your color-coded Notion dashboard.
2) Emojis
Alright, I’ll give them half credit here. Emoji abuse is real. They steal attention from your words. That is literally their job. Some people write like they’re decorating a birthday cake 🎉🔥🚀💯. And then wonder why nobody takes them seriously.
Gee, what a mystery. 🤷♂️
3) Em dashes
Oh no. Not punctuation. Someone call the grammar police.
Em dashes have been around since, I don’t know… always? Most text editors auto-replace two hyphens — into one —. I’ve been writing copy for years and I still trigger it by accident half the time.
That’s just English. Nothing AI about that.
4) The “contrast” pattern
You know this one. The classic three-part structure where someone tells you what something ISN’T before revealing what it IS. “Not this. Not that. Just this.”
It worked for decades. Now it’s a plague. I hate it so much I put it on my personal banned list, but it still somehow sneaks in like a cockroach.
But here’s the interesting part: AI LOVES this structure.
I get why. Those contrast structures let you sound bold without actually risking anything. The negation – “not this, not that” part – does the heavy lifting so your actual idea just walks in and takes credit.
Compare:
“Cooking at home is cheaper than eating out.” Agree? Disagree? Doesn’t matter – people already have opinions and are ready to argue.
Now dress it up as “It’s not about Michelin stars. Not about aesthetics. It’s about one skill that saves you money every day.” Suddenly… no friction. Nobody fights, everybody nods. It feels deep and it risks nothing.
For a language model that’s a jackpot – maximum approval with minimum risk.
RLHF (human feedback training) made it worse. Human reviewers preferred contrast-heavy answers as more structured and useful. So the models learned: write like this = get rewarded. Repeat it thousands of times before it went public.
No wonder it’s everywhere now.
Now let’s talk about what those “AI spotting” lists completely ignore.
I write copy for a living.
Yes, AI uses all these tricks. Constantly. Of course it does. That’s why people call it “AI style.”
But it didn’t invent them. It scraped every Halbert letter, every Schwartz headline, every Kern email and labeled it “good writing.” Which, honestly, it is. Then handed it to millions of people who never thought about sentence structure in their lives.
Think about it.
You’ve seen these techniques your whole life – in junk mail, magazine ads, infomercials, sales pages, email sequences. You didn’t even notice it because good copy disappears. It slides past your brain and goes straight to: “do I want this?”
But now?
Half the internet says nothing and ends with “DM me ‘GROWTH’ for the details.” So nothing to grab onto. Suddenly the writing becomes painfully visible.
Here’s the part I actually care about. (Last one, I swear.)
All these detectors obsess over surface-level stuff but ignore the one thing that matters:
The absence of a point of view.
Try this: take any piece of writing. Swap the author’s name. Put literally anyone else’s face on it. Does anything change? No? That piece is worth exactly $0. Because AI made words free. Or $20 if you like monthly subscriptions.
Same goes for music, videos, code – whatever. You feel it with your guts when something was made with intention versus when someone clicked “generate” and called it done.
So the only expensive thing left is the IDEA behind the words.
Which forces writing to get sharper. Weirder. More specific. More opinionated. More edge. More YOU.
That’s the best filter we’ve had in years.
A brutal one, if you sell anything online.
Scroll LinkedIn for five minutes and tell me your soul didn’t slowly exit your body. Every post sounds the same, every bio feels cloned: “I help X achieve Y” Congrats. So does everyone else.
Annoying? Sure. Whatever. But a skipped post costs you nothing. A skipped email? Costs you a customer.
Picture this.
Your reader opens their inbox. Eyes move fast. Subject line, skip. Subject line, skip. Promo, skip. Another “just checking in” from someone they definitely gave their address to by accident? Definitely skip. Eight emails deleted in under ten seconds.
Yours is number nine.
Good subject line. They opened it.
Then they scan the inside. The second it feels like every other promo email they’ve ever seen? Gone. Deleted. Done.
Most marketers only think about the first filter – the subject line. Most marketers only know about the first one. They spend all their energy on clever subject lines while training their list that their email is a waste of time.
Open rates drop. Clicks disappear. Revenue follows. Now the founder who “saved $3k a month” on AI copy is now pacing around wondering why his funnel stopped working.
I’ll save you time: He just painted it camouflage and threw it into a forest. Which is a very expensive way to learn that blending in is a terrible marketing strategy.
The only real fix is a point of view.
Opinions that are actually yours. Stories only you could tell. The stuff you almost delete because it feels too honest or too obvious.
AI can dress up your words. But it can’t create the idea behind them. That part is yours. But learning copy properly takes years. You probably don’t have years. Especially when you need promote something next Thursday.
So I built a shortcut.
The Revenue Letter. It’s a 10-day sprint. You bring your real takes, your weird angles, the stuff you almost didn’t say. I give you the structure to turn all of it into emails people actually want to read.
What comes out is still you. Just sharper and a lot more likely to get the click.
>>> See what happens when your message stand out
Everyone got the same tool. Everyone uses it the same way – asking ChatGPT to “write me a sales email that doesn’t sound like AI.”
Bold strategy.
Let’s see how that plays out.
P.S. Still not a robot. Just checked.