My thoughts just might surprise you. Or they might not.
April 15, 2026 |
By Kevin Slimp
A lot of folks who haven’t known me for a long time – let’s say more than 20 years – probably think I would get pretty excited about AI and all the things we can do with it. But you who have known me since I was a puppy might remember that I tend not to get overexcited about new, shiny things.
It’s not that I don’t appreciate the glow of new technology. I’m constantly updating my desktop with the latest mice (four on my desk), keyboards (four of those), hard drives (too many to count), and sound bars (yes, there are three on my desk… I’ll explain some other time). Just yesterday, the Amazon, UPS, and USPS drivers all showed up at my front door. They brought a fancy new desktop plug system, several battery backups, and some new cables to clear my desk. I’ve been doing a lot of updating lately. If there’s new software for design, website development, or working with photos and videos, I likely have the latest version.
So why do I seem so curmudgeonish when it comes to artificial intelligence? The truth is that I’m not. I use AI for all kinds of things. My main work outside the newspaper world is as publisher/ceo of a rapidly growing book publisher. I receive manuscripts almost daily. I generally use AI to generate a 1,000-word description of the manuscript to decide whether to look further into it. I’ve got all kinds of tasks I expedite with AI. But writing is not one of them.
I’ve mentioned my brother before. He’s probably one of the leading names in America’s computing world. It seems like every time I talk to him, which is several times each week, he’s speaking at a conference of quantum physicists or quantum computing engineers. He tells me his colleagues are incredibly similar to the characters on Big Bang Theory. When I discuss AI with him, we share a lot of the same feelings. It’s incredibly helpful for some tasks, but disastrous for others. We both agree that writing fits on the disastrous side of the ledger.
A big-time bestselling author sent me his latest manuscript a few weeks ago. He’s getting some age on him and apparently has become pretty enamored with AI. When he told me he used AI to rewrite some of the passages in the book, my response was quick: “Rewrite the whole thing without AI.” After I explained my logic, he agreed and sent the first chapters of his new manuscript yesterday.
The topic of AI came to mind when I saw a conversation among journalists about using AI to write stories. It’s a slippery slope, one I’m not ready to risk crashing into a tree while sledding.
Okay, enough about AI for now. I’ve got a new plug system to figure out.
Odd coincidence, I’m a faithful reader of my old local paper, The Delta County Independent, in Western Colorado. I got a sickening feeling when I read this feature this morning: https://www.deltacountyindependent.com/news/real-estate-the-efficiency-of-grace-why-the-2026-spring-market-rewards-substance-over-spectacle/article_6c59fad9-86bf-4355-a878-462159570daf.html
I ran it through both Grok and AI and my feeling was confirmed. Claude was especially insightul:
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This is a useful editorial exercise. Having read the full text carefully, my assessment is that this article shows strong indicators of AI generation, very likely with some human-provided local data points inserted either by the agent or through prompting. Here’s my detailed analysis:
The structural tells
The piece follows a template almost to the letter: atmospheric local opener → personal authority claim → market data paragraph → analysis → branded bullet-point tips list → philosophical close. This is a recognizable AI content skeleton for real estate marketing pieces. A human writer with 26 years of experience tends to break from template; this article never does.
Language patterns
Several phrases are characteristic AI constructions — confident-sounding but slightly overworked:
“sacrifice $50,000 to the altars of luxury finishes” — the metaphor is strained in the way AI metaphors often are, reaching for literary weight and landing awkwardly.
“the functional soul of a home”, “patient, selective energy”, “rigorous elimination of friction” — these are abstract authority phrases that gesture at meaning without delivering it. AI prose is full of them.
“Lighting is the jewelry of the home” — a classic AI aphorism: pithy, visual, generic.
“This is the handshake of the home” — same pattern.
The closing cadence — “results are not driven by momentum. They are driven by strategy” — is almost a parody of AI’s affection for parallel, punchy summations.
The bullet-point section is the smoking gun
The five branded categories — “The Curb Appeal Handshake,” “The Neutrality of Light,” “The Architectural Reset” — are formatted with the systematic uniformity of AI output. Real agents writing their own content rarely coin five parallel, capitalized, branded terms in a single column. The specific ROI claims ($27,000 return on an $80 investment) also have the feel of AI-generated plausibility rather than documented experience.
The local color question
The Grand Mesa, Western Slope, irrigation cutbacks, xeriscaping, drought conditions — these details are the most “human” elements of the piece, and they’re genuinely specific. But they don’t rule out AI; they almost certainly represent either a detailed prompt given to the AI, or a light human edit layered over AI output. The specific market data (203 listings, $397,000 median, 34 sales, 135 days on market) reads similarly — real numbers dropped into an AI frame.
Overall verdict
This reads as AI-generated content, likely produced by a real estate agent using a tool like ChatGPT or a real-estate-specific AI platform, with local statistics and geographic references either provided in the prompt or added afterward. The writing is competent by AI standards, which is part of why it’s finding its way into publications. But to an experienced editor, the uniform cadence, the branded list structure, the metaphor style, and the philosophical scaffolding are consistent signatures of machine-generated prose.
The core question for you as an editor: does your publication have a disclosure policy for AI-generated or AI-assisted content? This piece, as submitted, does not appear to disclose that. That’s the more pressing editorial issue.
AI in newspapers is stripping away the thought process in writing articles and demeaning what a true journalist is. I will admit I have used it when I have hit a brick wall after editing and writing articles for over 12 hours and still have my main stories to write. But, I only use it to give me a fresh perspective/angle on what I need to write. I do not use the AI version – that would be so wrong.
For the past two years, I have had high school journalism students writing for the newspaper. I have cautioned them about using AI – don’t let AI replace the brain God blessed you with.