Medium’s Stance on Artificial Intelligence is a Good Thing

…or is it?

Photo by Nahrizul Kadri on Unsplash

I took a short hiatus from writing because I am currently pretending to be a pro YouTuber. Meanwhile, Medium rolled out an official policy regarding its stance on Artificial Intelligence (AI) on the platform.

I stumbled upon the update as I was organizing my cluttered email inbox and it was a pleasant surprise. I’ve already expressed my opinion on the influx of sub-par content generated by the almighty ChatGPT:

I’m Tired of ChatGPT-Generated Articles

Obviously, I’m of the demographic that isn’t a fan of the watered-down “writing” that is produced with the help of Generative AI.

So I did a little happy dance on my extremely professional gamer girl chair and opened the link Medium provided in their official email, which directed me to this article:

Medium is for human storytelling, not AI-generated writing

It was posted nearly a year ago and I recognized it. I clapped to this story back when I originally read it and still appreciate the sentiment.

What surprised me, however, was the number of creators who were downright offended by this statement in the article replies. Of course, they felt that way because most of their work was, well, not theirs.
“Credit goes to this new ChatGPT prompt I just came up with”. 😉

Photo by Kasia Derenda on Unsplash

There is no need to waste any energy arguing with AI dudebros who think they’re somehow artists for generating the most unreadable, lackluster, and pointless rambles with a fancy chatbot.

They’ve made up their mind and that’s their prerogative. Give me all those articles that start with “In the realm of…” or talk about “navigating” some niche as if we’re sailing the Atlantic.

These are only a couple of the most immediate red flags that make me close a page every time, bye-bye! Also, the fact that none of these articles ever provide anything of value to the reader. If I wanted ChatGPT’s take on some topic I’d just ask it myself. 🤷

Photo by Jonathan Kemper on Unsplash

I recently read this and it’s so blatantly true:

“It’s ironic how everyone wants to use AI to create content but no one wants to read content made by AI”

For anyone interested, here’s another writer’s perspective on this thought.

“But I’m getting traffic and money with my AI articles!”

Congrats on discovering the concept of cramming keywords onto a page!!! 👏👏👏

AI slime has taken over too many blogs in a desperate attempt to appease the Google SEO machine. How many of you actually use Google and only Google these days to search for information? Yeah, those good old times are long gone. Now I need to write “My Question + Reddit” to discover some semblance of human thought, granted, not the most intelligent form of it.

Earlier this same afternoon I read this article by FastCompany that briefly covers the “Dead Internet” theory and how that correlates with the influx of AI-generated sludge. In the end, the post references a troubling report from 2022:

“Experts estimate that as much as 90 percent of online content may be synthetically generated by 2026” — source

Let’s not delve into this too deeply — it’s barely Wednesday, and I don’t need a headache right now. But you do have to wonder: if this is the future who will read this fake content? Will it just be AI “creators” or simply put glorified bots interacting with each other in an endless loop? And will there be space for authentic, unfiltered human expression on an internet overrun by artificial intelligence?

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

But something else caught my eye in the disgruntled replies regarding Medium’s AI policy:

Some people felt discriminated against. Which is a completely different angle on this topic that absolutely deserves much deeper consideration.

However, we can’t put in the same bracket people who genuinely experience language-based learning disabilities such as dyslexia, and those who “cannot write well or are not native English speakers.” I’m sorry but not being a good writer isn’t a disability and being vocal about this stance is only doing a disservice to those who genuinely need support.

Spoiler alert: I am not a native English speaker either. I make mistakes ALL. THE. TIME. My writing is trash to some extent and I’ve definitely made people online angry because of my hot takes. (I was canceled on Twitter years ago because of K-pop fandom beef, what a time to be alive) Should I feel entitled to be exempt from website policies because I happen to be an awful writer or can’t speak a language and use AI to mask that? HECK NO!

I’m not going to show up in Japanese forums, for instance, copy-pasting badly translated AI-generated comments, and then proceed to whine that I’m discriminated against by locals who find it goofy.

Please spare me the Shadiversity-like spiel about how it takes an “artistic eye” to craft the perfect prompt for your next spam article. Nobody is gatekeeping art or writing. But sometimes, and this might not feel good to hear, sometimes we’re just not good at some things. Shocking, I know.

Here’s a similar example: I love to sing. I do it all the time. That doesn’t stop me from sounding like a tortured goat. I don’t feel entitled to be on Spotify, but if I were to post there with an altered AI voice, I have no right to complain if the platform demands I disclose that I’m a fraud.

Other than that, I believe the right accommodations should be made for people who genuinely experience accessibility issues and need assistance with writing. PERIOD.

There is a huge difference between linguistic struggles and feeling entitled to monetize AI Lorem Ipsum because you can’t speak a language well enough. As far as I’m aware, writing in your native language on the platform is completely fine.

Photo by Nik on Unsplash

Personally, I’d rather read (and write) imperfect, but authentic stories.

The only thing that concerns me in this whole debate is this:

How does the platform detect whether a text is human-written or not?

Ironically, I’m assuming it’s with some sort of AI algorithm. 🙃

Other than the blatantly obvious sighs (“in the vast landscape of XYZ it is a game-changer” and other AI talk) sometimes AI-detectors flag completely human-written copy as AI-generated.

As an experiment, I plugged this draft into Zero GPT and it flagged 2.28% of the content as AI text. I always knew I was a calculator in a trench coat!

I work as a content writer at my day job and have to deal with this daily, rewording my sentences all the time to pass the GenAI vibe check.

So my questions are:

• How accurate are Medium’s AI detection systems?
• If your content gets penalized can you appeal the decision?
• What should I do if I suspect AI-generated content on the platform?
• Users can flag or report stories they see on their feeds. How can we prevent this feature from being abused to deplatform genuine authors?

The bottom line is that my opinion doesn’t matter at all. 😆 I tried the Partner Program for a month and canceled before the period even ended. It wasn’t for me and neither is this policy because I want my writing to be free for the world to scrutinize. 😄

For now, we’ll have to wait and see how the platform will change after the grace period ends. Will we see an uptick in authentic writing on the front page after the accounts with monetized AI articles can’t earn money anymore? Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if they come up with different prompts to further humanize “their writing”. Or they will migrate to another content of the internet that hasn’t filtered out the spam yet.

Thanks for reading!

Check out my blog (yes, I’m a real human :)) and more of my writing on Medium! 💌 If you want to chat you can find me on Instagram ⋆.ೃ࿔*:･