The real reason I distrust AI, ChatGPT, etc

An Email Players subscriber (not sure he wants me naming him) showed me a screenshot of a Reddit thread talking about AI copywriting that mentioned Yours Crotchety. Here are some of the money quotes they said about me: “Ben shoving an email sequence up AI’s ass is my favourite scene” “Ben Settle always seems angry. He has a 'get off my lawn' vibe to him." “never once have I read [Ben’s] email imagining him talking in a cheerful way. It’s like an old dude living alone in a house at a corner block who kills you for walking on his driveway.” My response? Correct on all counts. Re: my “get off my lawn” vibe: Stefania once caught me snapping ‘gitouttahere!!’ at some deer to get off my lawn once, and said I had a smile on my face, as if clearly pleased with the result, if that tells you something. And as far as my distrust of AI? Well, I am GenX. I grew up literally indoctrinated with War Games, Terminator, the treacherous droid in Alien, etc i.e., the movies where AI wants to destroy humanity.. I see how there are people using it legitimately and successfully — like, for example, Email Players subscribers Shane Hunter (to help create products), David Deutsch (with copywriting), and Sean Corbett (with subject lines). So I don’t condemn it whole cloth any more than I would whole cloth condemn swipe files or any other tool that streamlines the content creation and/or writing process. It’s just not my bag. I simply enjoy doing the hard work. And I always have enjoyed it — since the pre-internet days of writing research papers the hard way (hunting through a pile books, extracting the gold, writing notes on stacks of 3 x 5 notecards by hand, ordering them, then writing the paper from those cards). And even today I think that gives me an edge over those relying on technology to do the heavy lifting and shortcut the process. On the other hand: I freely admit it could just be my biases too. I don’t write for money, I write for pleasure. If I didn’t write for pleasure I wouldn’t be in the writing business. I’d be in a business that is more pleasing to me. The grueling research, the long hours of thinking & figuring things out, the even longer hours of writing long email sequences, long form ads, and whole books & novels… it’s therapeutic. And the numbers are proof enough for me that it works just fine. More: In the March Email Players issue I even show — with real life example — how writing content that is not intended to be profitable (like my novels, fiction, etc) makes my business FAR more sales and in a very real, practical, and proven way. Not everything can be tracked & measured by Google or a spreadsheet. In fact, I’d argue the big long term payout activities are impossible to track at all. Anyway, if someone finds using AI pleasurable (cue the sex robot jokes) that’s fine. But if you want to see how I approach this psychologically see the March Email Players issue. (It’s Email Players Rule #186) And I’ll just leave it at that. Here’s the link to subscribe before the deadline: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com]( Ben Settle This email was sent by Ben Settle as owner of Settle, LLC. Copyright © 2023 Settle, LLC. All Rights Reserved. No part of this email may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from Settle, LLC. Click here to [unsubscribe]( Settle, LLC PO Box 1056 Gold Beach Oregon 97444 USA