I was sending an email when a little magic wand popped up that said “Polish” and I thought that was weird because why would I want to translate my email into Polish?
I tried to click on it to make it go away but instead it changed the entire email because apparently it was saying that it needed to “polish” my email because I guess I’m too unsophisticated to use words:
There is no way in hell anyone who knows me would get that email and not think I’d been abducted so I deleted the suggested rewrite and updated my email:
But after I added the update gmail was like, “YOU’RE STILL DOING IT WRONG, IDIOT?” and the polish thing came up again and I was like, “Are you trying to AI fix a paragraph where I say how much I don’t want AI to fix shit?” And turns out, yeah, that exactly what it meant because it gave me this:
Jesus. Y’all, if you get an email from me it will be signed with HUGS, LOVE, FIGHT THE PATRIARCHY, DOWN WITH POWDERED GRAVY or SORRY I SUCK SO MUCH. It will be filled with typos and rambling parentheticals and apologies for answering several months too late. This is how you know it’s me and not a robot. My only hope is that my constant declining of the suggestions will make the AI learn from me and spread my terrible etiquette throughout the world.
Also, I just realized when I tried to insert these pictures into this blog about how much I hate AI my blog was suddenly like, “HEY I KNOW YOU JUST CLICKED A BUTTOM SAYING YOU WANT TO ADD A SPECIFIC PICTURE BUT HOW ABOUT WE JUST MAKE AI IMAGES FOR YOU INSTEAD?” AM I ON CANDID CAMERA? It’s like my whole computer is a toddler screaming “LET ME DO IT!” every time I try to create something.
And as much as I hate AI, I had to see what the program thought it could do so much better than me so I gave it the prompt “please stop giving me AI” and…all apologies. Clearly I did need help because…fucking wow. Nailed it:
Anyway…this sucks.
Worst regards,
Jenny
I would much prefer an AI trained on Jenny to that garbage! It would make us all sounds so witty and fun!
I’m with you—AI sucks! Thanks for sharing this moment of ridiculousness with us.
I love you more than I hate AI.
And, I hate AI with the searing heat of 10,000 suns.
I love this. AI is really good and finding cancerous cells and possibly habitable planets in our galaxy. No so great at the spelling and the writing emails that don’t sound generically douchey. (Kudos to spell check, though, which let me know that “douchey” has an “e” in it.)
Apparently I am unpolishable as I have not received that kind offer of assistance.
Right there with you! I’m still trying to find a way to turn off the magic wand. It isn’t helping with my sparkling anxiety. But I’m happy you’ve found the humor in it.
Kind regards,
Jenny B.
I am trying to write a grant application for my book and it keeps trying to correct me with STUPID words and punctuation. None of this is what I want to say! How do I turn this off? And the new summary of emails? Grrrrr
Hilarious and scary at the same time.
What program are you using so I can avoid it?
I wrote avantgarde once. It kept correcting it. I almost mailed afdergvx@$” (lots of swearing), which it did not correct.
Jenny, sometimes when I think I can’t love you any more you write something beautiful like this.
Regards, Heather
I will definitely be using this in my college writing classes to explain why I want them to use their own brains to make words.
I am with you sister AI want to invade our lives down with AI and Drones
Lately I’ve been letting AI make FB profile pics for me just for shits and giggles. For some reason, AI thinks I should be a man. Not that I mind, really. AI makes me into a rather good looking man, and I always wanted to pee standing up.
Regards,
Tammy (or Tommy)
I cannot wait until some other thing becomes the tech du jour. Remember when everyone had to have a Pinterest board? Even people like accountants were being urged to use it. Why!? Just do my taxes, don’t show me a curated set of images of the Best Receipts Ever. Or VR? No, I do not need to use VR to walk inside my computer. Unless I can use the digital entrails to predict the future. That might be cool.
I just love you so much. Thank you for the realness. And f*** AI.
I am so scared right now. THAT IS HOW I WRITE EMAILS. Not that I click “polish,” but the tone is nearly indistinguishable from how I would actually sound. How would anyone even know if my identity was stolen by AI?
I hate AI.
That’s hilarious!
I hate AI and I totally understand if I saw a polished email with the words regards and you weren’t being ironic I would totally think you’d been abducted and forced against your will to write it and start looking for codes in the text capitalized letters as to your location of capture
if I emailed an AI suggested neatly polished clearly thought out concise on topic email everyone I know would think I’ve been abducted
What is your operating system? I use Ubuntu and don’t see anything like this.
AI is awful. I hate it SO much, and I, too, would wonder why it wanted me to translate my email into Polish. Your response is completely polished and f*** AI.
All day long I have been fighting with the internet and AI or some other thing that refuses to let me do things that I have previously been legally able to do! (am I allowed to use expletives in this comment because I broke my personal best record of using them countless times today?)
The irony of your post actually gave me my first laugh of the day and the day is almost over!
Maybe I will go polish something to reduce my anxiety.
AI stuff can be turned off in Gmail settings
It’s listed as “Smart features”. The smart features box in general settings will be selected if you are allowing Gmail, etc. to use your content and activity to provide AI features. “When you turn this setting on, you agree to let Gmail, Chat, and Meet use your content and activity in these products to provide smart features and personalize your experience.” and they’re using your data to train their AI. It’s creepy!
I disabled all the AI settings I could on my devices because AI is the devil’s tool and signals the beginning of the end of humanity.
But platforms still have AI trying to change my communication on their websites. And it usually picks the most negative word to substitute for my typos, which tells me AI is learning from the trolls and bots and A**wholes online.
Regards, not….
Fight the robots!!!
Stand up for humanity!!!
Stay strong all you beautifully broken misfits, and together we can take back our world.
I spent TWO WHOLE days wondering why the google wants to translate my emails into POLISH!
I had a similar experience! Why would I want to translate to Polish?!?!???? And WTF, why can’t I make it stop asking me!!!!!!
The world has become a place I do not recognize.
brought to you by the people who have decided to go along with the assinine rename of a certain body of water east of Central America
You nailed it without AI.
Thank you so much for this! Wonderful
My husband’s name is Al, short for Albert, and this post’s headline and comments are sending me!
I with you all. Why do they even have AI anyway
AI scares the poop outta me. Moving to Montana soon, gonna be a dental floss tycoon
Thank you Kat (#30)–now the comments are even funnier!
Lmao! Good for you Jenny. I just refuse to use copilot on my new laptop, but haven’t seen the polish button yet…I’d love in AI started saying even half of what you say…can we program empathy, it’s needed
Side note: as far as I’m aware, “polish” is the only English word that changes pronunciation based on whether or not the first letter is capitalized. “Polish” or “polish”
Worse than autocorrect.
My computer keeps asking me to turn on AI. No. Just no.
DOWN WITH POWDERED GRAVY is my new clarion call.
I despise AI, and I wish I could turn it off EVERYWHERE. I had a snake that was due soon to deliver babies, and I googled “SIgns my boa is about to deliver babies.” AI’s response was “Check her teats.” Yeah, Bot-guy. I’ll get right on that.
I started to relate an old joke about Shinola (brand of shoe polish) but then I realized how horribly racist it is, and so I won’t. But yeah – I don’t want my writing “refined” by AI, because the part of me that’s ME, is what it takes out. Like, it leaves the content, but removes all the spirit. Yuck.
I love your writing. Never let it change you. I wish there was an app that would block all the AI stuff. I would call it STET.
this is my favorite email that happened today.
Dear Jenny, I absolutely loved your humorous take on AI’s relentless urge to ‘improve’ what doesn’t need fixing! Your witty storytelling had me laughing, and I could totally relate to the struggle of keeping things authentically human. Well done!
If you couldn’t tell, that’s an AI-created comment. It’s like AI wants us all to live in a Hallmark world.
You always make me laugh..something AI really can’t do..at least on purpose.
I have had very small interactions with AI, and then only when I asked for it…just asking ProWritingAid to suggest some alternatives for specific phrases. Probably did it 100 times. A bunch of times it gave me hints that resulted in me improving my prose. Once it gave me a suggestion that was clearly superior to what I’d written, and I accepted it.
Didn’t convince me of anything.
Thank you Jenny! I had a long bad day and really needed a laugh. This was a great way to end the day.
in case no one has told you lately, you rock. p.s. i just used the AI on an work email and for that, it did make me sound more polished, which as it was an email to a patient is a good thing, but i wouldn’t use it for a personal email.
Scary
AI… AI…??? oh, I got it Antagonistic Indigestion. Right? Bummer.
I’m a professor, so my relationship with AI is longer than many of my recent romances.
I love to subvert, then giggle. I just realized that’s how I’m dealing with all horrible moment recently…heeheehee
It’s such a nightmare. And it’s EV
Hi Ms. Lawson (as I do not “REALLY” know You personally I’m refraining from “Hi Jenny”, though being a reader here for likely some more than 10 years) and all Your readers as well!
Sorry for Your inconveniences but who forces You to use such crappy tools and “services” anyway?! Being slightly older than You I’ve been using IT professionally for more than some 35 years now and the last version of Windows I was using was XP. I do not have a smartphone, I do not have any social media accounts and I still earn my money with IT-related activities …
If You are not paying for it You are not the customer but the product being sold!
Nowadays this even applies if You have paid sometimes. It may be slightly or even significantly more difficult or uncomfortable to NOT USE all the nice gimmicks and tools and whatsoever the apples, facebooks, googles, instagrams, metas, twitters … and so on would like us to use constantly 24/7 but it is possible! And it comes with a great realisation and sense of freedom and happiness … And much more free time to use for Your own and not for companies making money out of You by analysing everything You do write, speak or think about!
Wish You really all the best and still looking forward to Your next book!!! Thanks already in advance (from Europe) in hope that Your “orange” won’t turn the whole world into the final chaos known as Armageddon! Cheers!
This: https://bsky.app/profile/illdave.bsky.social/post/3kvabyyhwce2b
I misread DOWN WITH POWDERED GRAVY as DOWN WITH POWERED GRAVITY and now I’m curious about how we’d use powdered gravity.
I want real feel, real funny, real stupid. I want to live, to breathe,to win to fail,to work
To know that my life has been mine not some construct
Any chance I could buy an NFT of this post?
Yet, despite your best efforts, AI still assisted you with writing this missive, providing the inspiration for an entire blog entry. We are dooooooooomed, doomed, I say!
> why would I want to translate my email into Polish?
because POLSKA GUROM!!!