I remember the first time I used AI to help me write and organize something. It was June 2023, and I was finally thinking seriously about putting my house on the water in Virginia onto the short-term rental market.

My dad and I bought this house while I was still working on wooden schooners, and it was my place to go between boat jobs. Up to this point, I was an expert at couch surfing. Later it became my peaceful retreat, and I even lived there the first year I was working in the building industry. It was my happy place with endless views of three different water sources.  The name of the house comes from old sailor folklore. Legend has it that when sailors die, they sling a paddle over their shoulder and walk until they get to sailor’s paradise where the grog is endless and the music never stops. That’s Fiddler’s Green. There’s even a sea chanty about it.

Long ago we gave the house that name, and now I needed to write up a compelling rental description. I also needed rules, a whole welcome book…I had never done this before, and honestly, it felt daunting. Probably for more reasons than getting the writing organized. The house was also my mom’s favorite place and when she died in 2021, we had almost sold it but then my dad and I started talking about short-term rental as a way to keep the place. I had already procrastinated for about two years and now his health wasn’t great. I knew I’d come to a crossroads where I either had to get the house rented or sell my sanctuary so it wouldn’t be a burden on him anymore.

This new thing, ChatGPT, was something I knew I needed to play around with anyway. So, in the spirit of experimentation, I asked ChatGPT to write a story about the house, about us, about the whole vibe. And you know what? At first, I thought it was fantastic!

Fast-forward a few months (okay fine, a couple of years… procrastination is kind of my thing when it comes to this house). By then my father had passed away. I had left it long enough and I knew it was time to get it on the market. The rental market. I still wasn’t ready to part with the house. I went back and reread what it had written. I realized how fake and flowy the language was. It didn’t sound like me at all.

That’s when I realized pretty quickly that if you let ChatGPT do all the writing for you, you’re going to sound like a bot. A really eloquent bot…but still a bot nonetheless.

So I took the draft back, edited it (a LOT), and realized something important. AI can be a great editor, a brainstorming buddy, and a way to kickstart ideas. But it cannot replace your voice. Only you know what your focus is, what you want to say, and what your voice really sounds like. If you leave it to AI, it will take over and leave you with writing that screams “ChatGPT wrote this,” instead of something that reflects you.

We all need editors and sounding boards. Sometimes we even need a little ramble in our writing to feel human and relatable. AI doesn’t get that. Left to its own devices, it will polish the personality right out of your writing.

So, yes. AI can be your assistant. But never your replacement.