The Garnishing Sentences Epidemic, Courtesy AI

​There was something I realised when I started out as a Policy Analyst. When I used to read a lot of policy related reports, I would always try to extract the part where the data was present. Percentages, trends, what went up, what went down or any kind of numbers really. Slowly I observed that so much of what was written was just garnishing sentences. The decoration we do to our food that makes it look good. I’d read paragraphs of these reports and would often find just a line or two giving me actual information. Now with AI giving writing ability and skill to everybody, I see so much this has actually exacerbated. Sometimes you read pages of documents and realise there was new knowledge in barely a few sentences. So now that everyone is a writer, which I feel, is a good thing because there was a time when a lot of people who could think well, were creative and had the technical skills required for various things, would often struggle with effective communication. AI has really just eliminated that barrier. The challenge now though, is to figure out how much of what we say is relevant. Now that everyone can write, what’s really important is who has a better story to tell, and is able to say more in less.