No AI in Human Communication#
Human communication is not just information transfer. It is how we build trust, familiarity, empathy, and connection.
Think with AI. Speak for yourself.
How we explain something, disagree, give feedback, show appreciation, apologize, or change our minds teaches others who we are and how we think.
Our effort, judgment, wording, imperfections, and intent are part of the message.
Human connection is a quality of good communication, not overhead.
Research increasingly suggests that outsourcing interpersonal communication to AI can carry relational costs, including lower perceived warmth, effort, authenticity, reciprocity, and willingness to forgive. See the evidence and its limits.
Don't outsource the relationship#
If one person generates a message with AI and the other generates the response with AI, we can end up with AIs talking to each other, masquerading as us.
The messages may become more polished while the people become less involved.
Teams and relationships need us to experience how each other actually thinks, explains, disagrees, asks questions, resolves conflict, and communicates uncertainty.
AI can improve the text while degrading the human signal behind it.
If someone needs AI to summarize your AI-generated message before they can respond, something has already gone wrong.
Write first. Use AI second.#
Form the thought and the core message yourself.
Then use AI if useful: challenge your reasoning, find blind spots, proofread, translate, shorten, or improve clarity.
Assistance is different from delegation.
AI should help you communicate your thinking, not manufacture it for you. Fluency is not a substitute for relevance or context.
Don't borrow expertise#
AI makes it easy to sound authoritative about things we do not actually understand.
Do not use that borrowed authority to preach, correct, or educate someone about something you cannot independently evaluate.
If you send it, own it. Understand the claims. Understand the terminology. Be able to judge whether they are correct.
A simple test: Can you answer the first reasonable follow-up yourself?
If not, reconsider making the claim.
Do the thinking work before you send#
AI makes producing 1,000 words almost free. Reading them is not.
Do not externalize your thinking effort onto everyone else. Organize the thought, remove noise, provide the necessary context, and compress the message before sending it.
AI-generated volume is cheap. Human attention isn't.
Communication is a skill. Keep practicing it.#
Writing clearly, adapting to another person, explaining your reasoning, disagreeing constructively, and navigating difficult conversations are skills worth preserving.
Use AI to improve those abilities, not gradually stop exercising them.
Before you send#
- Did the core thought come from me?
- Is this grounded in the actual context?
- Does it sound like me?
- Do I understand and stand behind the important claims?
- Can I handle the first reasonable follow-up myself?
- Did I respect the reader's time?
- Am I communicating with this person, or making AI communicate for me?
The principle#
Use AI to think better. Challenge yourself with it. Research with it. Prepare with it. Proofread, translate, clarify, and shorten with it.
But don't outsource your voice, judgment, effort, or relationship with another person.
Be the author.
Be able to defend it.
Be present with the person.
Think with AI. Speak for yourself.