The Drawback of Using AI to Send Work E-Mails

In my prior piece, titled “Using AI to Write Your Work Emails,” I wrote about using AI to write e-mails at work. In this follow-up piece, I describe about the drawbacks of such technology and provide advice for overcoming them.

AI use can be negative for you and others. Ramifications of using AI are:

• Weakening of your skills – You could gradually become worse at writing. Just as you may no longer remember phone numbers because they are saved on your cell phone, you may begin having trouble coming up with the rights words.
• Anxiety – You may grow to be less sure of yourself, if you become overly reliant on AI. Digitalinformationworld.com reported, “Seventeen percent feel more anxious when writing without AI than when using it.”
• Confusion – An AI-generated e-mail could conceivably contradict what you said and/or wrote.
• Errors – AI may include inaccurate information in your e-mail, as AI often creates false information. For example, it could create imaginary people and “mix truth and fiction.”
• Loss of trust – People may think that you use AI with other work and that you will use AI again in your future e-mails. They also may “doubt the sincerity” of what you wrote.
• Damage to your reputation – Your e-mail recipient may feel that you do not take your audience and/or your work seriously. After all, you have made it clear that you would rather spend time doing other things than writing an e-mail without technical assistance.
• Embarrassment of you and/or your agency – People may think less of you and/or your workplace.
• Depersonalization – You and your agency could potentially lose your unique voice.

Just as it is easy to use AI to draft e-mails, be aware that it is also not difficult to sense probable AI in text, including e-mails. It can be easy to spot because:

• AI writing can be formulaic. Key signs that AI wrote an e-mail are when language is too formal or robotic, unnatural, overly polished and/or repetitive. It also may use specific word choices and/or punctuation.
• Some people may send the same AI-drafted e-mails. According to Digitalinformaiton.com, “[one] in five employees say they have seen identical AI-generated emails sent by different coworkers.”
• AI-detector websites can be used to determine probable AI. While those sites may not be completely accurate and may even contradict each other, they can be helpful in exposing probable AI use. Some give percentages of AI-written versus human-written text.

Instead of using AI, read and write all of your e-mails, especially e-mails with sensitive content. If you are wary of your writing when drafting important e-mails (such as about a major event), ask one of your colleagues to review it. In return, you can help your co-worker, building mutually beneficially relationships.

If you really want to use AI when e-mailing people:

• Edit AI-generated text, making it sound like a human wrote it.
• Replace formulaic verbiage with other words.
• Personalize the e-mail, adding information that AI probably would not know.
• Read your e-mails aloud.
• Ask if a real person would have written the e-mail.

Have empathy to recipients of your e-mails. You may not like receiving an AI-generated e-mail. So, do not send such correspondence to others.

On a related topic, what should you do if think that you received an AI-generated messages that may be causing some problems (i.e., did not answer key points in your initial e-mail)? Would you mention AI, risking the other person’s defensiveness? Saying that the language used in the other person’s e-mail seems to be different than words they usually use could be beneficial. That comment could prompt the other person to admit they used AI.

Avoid using AI to send work-related e-mails. Using it could decrease your skills, diminish trust, and cause other unnecessary problems.

Miriam Edelman, MPA, MSSW, is a Washington, D.C.-based policy professional. Her experience includes policy work for Congress. Miriam’s undergraduate degree is from Barnard College, Columbia University, with majors in political science and urban studies. She has a master’s in public administration from Cornell University, where she was inducted into the national honorary society for public administration. She has a master’s of science in social work (focusing on policy) from Columbia University. She is a commissioner of the DC Commission on Persons with Disabilities. Miriam aims to continue her career in public service. She is especially interested in democracy, civic education, District of Columbia autonomy, diversity, health policy, women’s issues, and disabilities.

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