I hope this email finds you well: Authenticity pitfalls and AI
In the past year, I have noticed a noticeable increase in the number of emails I was getting that started with
I hope this email finds you well.
As a university professor used to receiving emails that start with “Hey”, the onslaught of professionally composed emails with proper salutations and polite inquiries about my wellness was a welcome change. It was not long before I realized that this sudden change was conspicuously aligned with the launch of ChatGPT by Open AI at the end of 2022. Over time, I learned how useful ChatGPT and other Large Language Models (LLMs) have become in helping people with their email communication. Colleagues have mentioned that they are able to use Chat GPT to rewrite and restructure emails, to make them sound more empathetic, more assertive, more inclusive. I have used it myself, to generate exemplars of effective vs ineffective email communication for my students.
Yet over time, I noticed another change – an alienating feeling from receiving emails that sounded the same. My eyes were starting to gloss over this communication – the email found me… unaffected. I have heard industry professionals jokingly talk about ignoring emails from their CEO because they all sounded AI-generated. In the past, we warned about the audience stupefying effects of the heavy use of jargon, and we pilloried leaders that relied on too many corporate clichés. The problem is that AI, by definition, is a cliché-generator. In generating the most common sentence constructions and widespread usages, it is designed to produce the exact kind of communication that zones out audiences.
Effective communication is about connection and shared meaning. Shared meaning comes from painting a complex picture of what we see, feel, and think, and in such a way that the other person can see the same picture. Connection comes from the moment where, through our verbal and nonverbal expression (our unique choice of words, sentence construction, emotional tone), we communicate to the other person more than just the content of our message, but also who we are. We might commonly refer to this experience as “being seen” and “feeling seen” to describe the positive authentic communication effect on both the message sender and message receiver.
Importantly, the function of this effect is not just to build intimate relationships and friendships. Audience connection is a leadership superpower when it comes to communicating with others your vision, strategy, need for change, or difficult times ahead. Leaders who can express themselves, their values and their feelings in a way that is shared with the audience are those that have the most communication impact (“I have a dream…”). Ineffective leadership communication on the other hand can come from a failure to create shared meaning, an inability to create a connection, or both.
Leaders might celebrate the efficient way they can now create communication, without understanding how authenticity is crucial in the connection part of their communication.
In fact, we are only just beginning to understand the unconscious impact of authenticity. In a recent research study (Study Shows Art in Museums Stimulates Brain More Than Reprints), electroencephalogram (EEG) measures* showed neurological response differences in those who viewed an original work of art vs. a reproduction – viewing the original work of art resulted in a much larger brain response compared to viewing a reproduction of the same painting. Simply put, the original painting was much more engaging. For the Mauritshuis Museum in the Netherlands, it allowed them to demonstrate the value of going to see an original work of art. For the rest of us, it asks a deeper question about the value of our own expression and what is lost when we replace our own efforts at expressing ourselves with those of an LLM-based reproduction.
If we don’t take the time to express ourselves, and the receivers are so unengaged by the lack of authenticity that they also ignore the content, then relying on AI to generate communication is simply a way to avoid communication altogether.
Best regards,
Elena Svetieva
* Caveat: the study was conducted by a neuromarketing firm (Neurensics | Neuro Market Research Company) and the science has not been publicly published.