2026-05-26原文

Quoting Paul Graham

Paul Graham criticizes founders for using AI to write emails, noting that the journalistic style is easily identifiable and undermines trust.

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Key points

Paul Graham observes many founder emails are now written in a hard-hitting journalistic style, indicating AI use.
He has never finished reading an email signed by a human but written by AI, feeling deceived.
Using AI for writing reduces the author's credibility, suggesting they cannot write unaided or are trying to trick the reader.
Graham asserts that using AI to write is not impressive; any teenager can do it.

Why it matters

This matters because paul Graham observes many founder emails are now written in a hard-hitting journalistic style, indicating AI use.

Technical impact

May affect model selection, inference cost, product capability, and evaluation benchmarks.

A quote from Paul Graham

Simon Willison’s Weblog

26th May 2026

A lot of the emails I get from founders are now written in a hard-hitting journalistic style. I know they're written by AI, because no founder ever wrote this way before. And once you realize something is written by AI, it's hard not to ignore it.

I have never knowingly finished reading an email signed by a human but written by AI. It feels like being lied to, and who would stand for that?

[...] It makes me think less of the author. It means they can't write well unaided (or feel they can't), and that they're trying to trick me.

It's not impressive to use AI to write stuff for you; any teenager can do that.

— Paul Graham