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Among the many things that I’ve been worrying about in the last few months, one may seem quite strange: I’m worried that AI is going to destroy the internet.
What I mean about is that the explosion of AI tools, bots, and AI-generated content is quickly changing how people interact with others and with brands online. In the race to drive and grow user engagement, more and more websites—social media in particular—are relying more and more on a barrage of quick AI-generated updates.
As we know, AI has massive limitations. It can only generate content as good as the data it’s fed. It can have inherent biases and skews. And it kills online interactions. The algorithms that generate these content pieces are designed to drive engagement in the form of reactions, not challenge the reader or provide anything of substance.
What this is rapidly leading to is an erosion of digital trust.
When digital trust erodes, everything from e-commerce to online communities suffers, as users approach the content with increasing skepticism. Many online communities on social platforms such as Reddit are becoming more and more dominated by bots that seem human at first glance, but they quickly show patterns designed to steer the conversation in specific ways. The implications, both for users and the platforms, are quite worrisome.
“When digital trust erodes, everything from e-commerce to online communities suffers.”
Diego Lastra
This means that for us—for me as an advertiser, for brands, for companies, and above all, for users—authentic communication will become more valuable as it becomes more difficult to find. Look at the Facebook comments under an AI-generated post. While some casual or unsophisticated users react to it as if it’s a real event or photo, many others immediately question it.
Fun exercise: Do a quick search for “what’s this AI garbage” on Facebook and see how many angry thousands of posts and comments pop up. Most people instinctively sense that something is missing, that indefinable human quality that helps build real connection and trust.
You may already have had the experience of dealing with an AI chatbot to request support online.
As impressive as these tools are, and as much money as they can save companies, they also create a distance between the company and the user. They give the impression that the company doesn’t care about them as persons. Unfortunately, market realities mean that these AI assistants will remain (and no doubt, continue to improve) and people will get used to them, as we’ve got used to dealing with voice recognition prompts on the phone.
That doesn’t mean the experience will be less frustrating to the user though—is your call to customer service today more or less infuriating than it was ten years ago?
As AI tools become more sophisticated, a paradox emerges: the more technically perfect the content becomes, the more distant it seems to users who want to feel a human connection, to feel acknowledged and respected.
“Authentic communication will become more valuable as it becomes more difficult to find.”
Diego Lastra
People don’t want to connect with perfection. They want to connect with shared humanity. I recently visited one of my healthcare provider’s websites for info on a procedure and spent some time browsing through the blogs. What I wanted was to read about people sharing my concerns, about the doctors and positive outcomes, how others overcame their illnesses, or maybe a surgeon’s perspective on the procedure. Instead, I got lots of AI-generated information (it’s easy to recognize the “Chat GPT style”—bullet points, summaries, words that it tends to use) on medical conditions and procedures, but it left me cold. It felt like the machine was “AI-xplaining” to me what it thought I needed to read, not what I wanted.
Prioritizing authentic communication helps invite our audiences into building a relationship, rather than a transaction. It expresses to them that we value them as visitors, as readers and consumers of our content. Embracing imperfection, showing vulnerability, and communicating with clarity and purpose will become as valuable in our arsenal of writing tools as proper grammar and punctuation is.
The goal, whether it’s a simple post on social media expressing your company or brand’s support of a cause or a blog entry on your website, should be to acknowledge the humans behind both the message and its reception, thus creating a receptive space for genuine dialogue rather than one-way broadcasting.
I strongly believe the most successful content online that drives positive user interactions recognizes that automation should serve to enhance human communication, not replace it. By maintaining transparent authorship, incorporating personal stories, addressing audience concerns, adding a touch of humor, and embracing occasional messiness, your brand or organization can build a relationship of authenticity with its users.
We are now at the point that an authentic human voice becomes not just a differentiator but an essential foundation of digital trust.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Hispanic Executive or Guerrero Media.
Born in Mexico City to a creative director and a psychologist, Diego Lastra has been working in advertising since 2004, focusing mostly on multicultural and tribe-based marketing. Diego has always been fascinated by the power of media to persuade and shape culture, and the evolution of digital media as it becomes an extremely entrenched part of our personal and social lives. He is currently the associate media director at Dieste.
