I recently finished writing an email to a potential client. Just before I hit send, I went back to review what I had written, and a strange thought crossed my mind: should I add a couple of errors, just to make sure it does not come across as AI-generated and impersonal?

That hesitation made me pause. Because it says something about the times we are living in. Well-written articles, emails, and posts are no longer taken at face value. Instead, they are immediately met with suspicion, dismissed as AI. And oddly enough, the very things we once tried so hard to avoid, spelling errors, typos, little slips in grammar are now what make writing feel human.

A stick figure pausing with a thought bubble.
That small pause before sending.

It was not that long ago when clarity, strong grammar, and a well-structured argument were the hallmarks of good writing. No one questioned it. Today, those same qualities can trigger a reader's internal AI detector. The better, clearer, and more useful a piece of text is, the more likely it is to be doubted.

And this suspicion is not confined to writing. We are starting to see it everywhere. A logo design that feels a little too perfect. A piece of digital art that seems impossibly detailed. Recently, a band called Velvet Sundown briefly trended on Spotify, with beautifully produced, catchy tracks until it was revealed that the entire band, from the music to the artwork, was AI-generated. I was mind blown.

This changes everything, not just for creators, but for all of us. How do we consume content now? How do we know what is authentic? How do we trust our own taste when the art we are connecting with might not have a human heart behind it?

A stick figure surrounded by question marks.
The better the output gets, the stranger the question becomes.

Which leaves many of us in a strange place. Do we consciously start dumbing down what we write? Do we throw in the odd mistake just to reassure people we are real? I will be honest, I have caught myself reading something online or looking at a video, a designed graphic, and wondering the same thing: this feels too smooth, maybe it is AI. So in a way, I am guilty of the same skepticism.

But here is the irony: if authenticity comes down to making mistakes, and we begin inserting them on purpose, then authenticity is already gone. It is no longer natural.

And that is the heart of this. This is not really about typos or grammar. It is about what we truly value in writing, in design, and in expression. Because the real marker of being human is not the occasional slip-up. It is our lived experience. It is the moments that knocked us down, the curveballs life threw at us, the stories we have gathered, the ways we have had to learn and adjust.

But Wait

The temptation is to say that our unique, messy, lived experience is the one thing that cannot be replicated. For now, might be true. But let us be honest: it will not be very long before an AI can analyze a million stories of failure, a thousand memoirs of resilience, and the entire comedic timing of our best stand-ups, and then write a deeply resonant, personal story of its own. It will be able to mimic the feeling of lived experience convincingly.

So where does that leave us?

A stick figure holding up a light bulb.
The act itself still matters.

It leaves us with the act itself. If the output can be faked the perfect prose, the catchy song, even the moving story, then the only thing that remains truly, undeniably real is the input.

The real authenticity is not just in the story we tell, but in the courage it takes to tell it. It is in the messy, imperfect, human act of showing up and sharing our truth not knowing if it will work, but doing it anyway.

Authenticity is not in the typo. It is in the truth only we can tell.