Don’t Let AI Flatten Your Authorial Voice
This post began as a reflection I shared on LinkedIn during my AI for Editors course. The discussion that followed reminded me how differently editors across fields balance clarity, accuracy, and voice — and why these questions matter more than ever.
Here’s the post:
I’m currently taking the AI for Editors course by the brilliant Erin Servais. Not because I want to automate my work, but because I’m interested in the ethics and logistics: where AI belongs in publishing, and where it doesn’t. As part of the course, we submit weekly assignments.
For one of them, I experimented with short, anonymized extract of text to see what kinds of edits the AI tool would propose. On the surface, the tool did what it was asked to do: fix punctuation, grammar, and spelling. But it also took liberties, by "smoothing out" sentences I hadn’t asked it to touch, making them more “correct” in form, but so much flatter in voice. Suddenly the writing no longer sounded like the author: it sounded like nobody.
That experience reminded me of conversations I used to have as a commissioning editor. Working with academics from all over the world, I often had to decide how far to “fix” the English in manuscripts by non-native speakers. In recent years, I noticed a welcome shift: rather than chasing flawless, standardized English, volume editors began valuing authenticity. Correct the errors that truly hinder or impede understanding, yes, but preserve character, whenever possible.
This feels personal to me too. I speak and write in more than one language, and I know my English carries traces of Italian. I sometimes catch myself translating an expression directly, and then I’ll soften it for an English-speaking audience. That’s me. That’s what my voice in English sounds like. I wouldn’t want that sanded away in the name of “perfection.”
Which is why I worry about how easily AI flattens writing. It can polish prose until it gleams, but in the process, it strips away the fingerprints of individuality.
Editing, at its best, is about balance: clarity without erasure, correction without homogenization. The role of an editor is to protect that spark of voice ✨
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The responses to the original post — especially from editors in fields like medicine, sociology, and education — reminded me how context shapes our decisions as editors. There’s no single “right” balance between clarity and character: it’s always a negotiation between purpose, audience, and voice.
