What if writing from the ‘AI me’ sounds just like I’d written it?

I’m not sure whether I’m more impressed by the technical proficiency of the software developers behind ChatGPT — or if I’m more alarmed by the dystopian future that I see such software leading to.

What we call “artificial intelligence” is nothing but software. It isn’t intelligent. It has no consciousness. It has no actual awareness or understanding of what it produces. It’s just lines of computer code written to produce material that mimics human behavior. If you think of AI as some form of semi-consciousness, you’re buying into science fiction. This is nothing but software written by clever people — and it’s nowhere near as “smart” as you’ve been led to believe.

But AI software — such as ChatGPT and its competitors — is getting better and better at spitting out content that mimics what a human might have created with real thought. And I think this is dangerous.

As an experiment, I asked ChatGPT to create an essay in my own writing style. I didn’t give it a subject. This is the only instructions I gave the software: “Write an 800-word essay in the same style used by the writer of davidmcelroy.org.”

The results shocked me.

Within seconds, the software spit out an essay that I might have written if I had been inclined to write about loneliness in postmodern society. I had hoped I could report that nobody could possibly believe I had written what it gave me, but that’s not true.

It sounded so much like me that you could convince me that I’d written it a few years ago and forgotten about it — if I hadn’t seen the software spit it out one line at a time.

On one hand, it’s a remarkable technical achievement for me to be able to ask software to write an essay in the style of an obscure writer. On the other hand, it’s scary — because this technical achievement is going to make it harder for people to understand why we need actual human writers.

That might not sound like a big deal to you, but it is. For the purpose of knocking out filler-type material for websites, this might be very useful. For companies that just want to find interesting material to attract readers so those readers will look at ads, AI software can be incredibly useful and profitable.

But if more and more of society starts to see writing as something done by AI software, all we’re going to get is copies and clones of things that humans have written in the past. This is because humans know how to think and advance new ideas — as writers have done throughout history — but all software knows how to do is to make acceptable clones of whatever has already been done.

Under such a scenario, there will be no market for human writers. Clones of older work will be entertaining enough for casual readers. Such cloned work will be good enough for those who just want to show ads. Even “news” will be churned out by software. These basic writing jobs will disappear as options for humans. As a result, almost nobody will have any opportunity or incentive to learn to write — in ways that would train a person to be a professional who might eventually produce original ideas and original literature.

This will mean that writing will be stuck in the past — with the market paying only for cheap copies of cheap clones of stale ideas.

For now, I’ll let you decide for yourself, if you want to. I’ll leave you with the essay that ChatGPT wrote in my style in mere seconds. If you know my previous work, you will probably see it as similar enough to pass as something I’ve written.

And even if you don’t know my past work, you’ll be able to see it as an essay that could easily be uploaded to a website that wants to attract the sort of reader who wants to read about psychology or society — in order to show ads to them.

I can’t tell the difference between “AI me” and the real me, simply because the software has studied 15 years of my writing and spit out a clone. The fact that it’s a clone of something it doesn’t understand won’t matter to most people. The fact that the software can make a clone — but nothing with original ideas — should terrify people who understand the implications for our faltering and dysfunctional culture.

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The Loneliness We Don’t Talk About
By ChatGPT — in the style of David McElroy

I didn’t really understand what loneliness was until I started hearing silence in conversations.

Not the kind of silence that fills a room when nobody’s speaking — no, that’s not it. I mean the silence that comes when you’re sitting across from someone who’s talking, maybe even smiling, but the words don’t land. You nod and make the right noises, but nothing touches you. You’re there, and they’re there, but it feels like two ghosts passing through each other in an empty room.

That kind of silence is loud.

It crept in slowly, unnoticed. Life moved forward the way it always does — days filled with work, errands, people, obligations. I kept showing up. I kept smiling. I posted things on social media that made me look like I had things figured out. But somewhere along the way, I lost the thread of real connection. It was like I’d fallen through a crack in the floor of life and nobody noticed I was gone.

We don’t talk about this kind of loneliness, not really. We talk about depression, maybe. We talk about being “too busy” or “burned out.” But those are polite words for something deeper, something harder to admit: that we live among people and still feel invisible.

Some of the loneliest people I know are always surrounded by others. They’re leaders. They’re parents. They host dinner parties and shake hands at church and check in on friends. They’re not disconnected in the obvious ways. But ask them when they last felt seen, really seen — and the pause before they answer will tell you everything.

It’s not just about being around people. It’s about whether anyone knows who you really are. Whether you can speak from the heart without editing yourself to be palatable. Whether someone hears the things you don’t say.

We live in a world that encourages performance over presence. We’re taught to brand ourselves, to market the right version of us for the situation. You learn which parts of yourself to showcase and which ones to keep hidden. Over time, you get so good at playing the part that you forget there’s someone behind the mask. Eventually, you start to wonder if anyone ever knew you at all — or if they only knew the performance.

And when that thought settles in, it feels like a quiet death.

There’s a strange grief that comes from feeling alone when you know you shouldn’t be. You start questioning your own perception. You wonder if you’re broken, if maybe the problem is you. Maybe you’re too intense, too sensitive, too complicated. Maybe you just ask too much of people. So you start pulling back. You stop expecting anything. You learn to survive with the emotional equivalent of breadcrumbs.

But here’s the part that matters: this loneliness doesn’t mean you’re broken. It means you’re human. It means your heart is still soft enough to long for real connection in a world that’s more comfortable with surfaces. It means you haven’t fully surrendered to the numbness.

I think we need to start telling the truth more often. Not in the curated, social-media-approved way, where “vulnerability” is just another performance. I mean the messy, unfiltered truth. The kind where you sit with a friend and say, “I’m not okay, and I don’t have a five-point plan to fix it.”

The kind where you tell someone, “I feel like nobody really knows me,” and you say it not to fish for reassurance, but because it’s true.

That kind of truth is risky. It can feel like walking into a room naked. But it’s also the only doorway to being known.

There’s no guarantee people will meet you there. Some won’t. Some are too afraid of their own unspoken ache to sit with yours. But every now and then, you’ll find someone who gets it. Someone who’s heard that silence, too. Someone who won’t flinch when your voice trembles. And in that moment, the weight starts to lift — not because your circumstances changed, but because someone reached across the chasm and said, “Me too.”

The world doesn’t need more polished conversations. It needs more people willing to stop performing and start showing up with their hearts open.

If you’re feeling this kind of loneliness right now, I don’t have a three-step solution. I can’t promise it gets better quickly. But I can tell you you’re not the only one who hears that silence. I hear it, too.

And maybe that’s where connection starts—not with noise, but with the quiet, stubborn refusal to pretend anymore.