When Everyone Sounds Like a Genius

At first, Thomas Paine had no special status, no power, no unique credibility.

Then, in the winter of 1776, he wrote something clear and compelling – a pamphlet called Common Sense. It caught the public’s eye, spread like kudzu, and put him on the map. 

He thought of something. He wrote it down. He became someone. He had a point of view, a developed perspective, and his writing proved it. 

Ditto Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Alexis de Tocqueville. Martin Luther’s 95 Theses, Machiavelli’s The Prince, Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. You get the point. 

Their writing created credibility; their credibility earned them recognition; their recognition earned them influence. It was a formula that opened doors.

Of course, this was all before the age of the LLM. 

Because now…how do you know what to trust? Or worse, who to trust? 

The young executive puts together a report on a bold vision for restructuring his division. The thinking is polished… perhaps too polished? The nonprofit CEO emails donors, outlining her vision for the next year. Her cadence is warm and smooth… perhaps too smooth?

Culture has always relied on the link between language and trust. What you wrote was proof of how you thought; how you thought was proof of where you belonged.

LLMs are eroding that link. And the European Union is fighting back. 

To comply with the new EU AI Act, Claude is tagging its output with an invisible watermark and releasing an algorithm to detect it. 

Until that algorithm is published, we’re stuck in a world where everyone can sound like they believe in something. So how do you know who actually does?

Look at what they do, at what they are willing to risk, at the standards they refuse to betray, at the decisions they make, and at what they are willing to sacrifice.

Writing can still communicate conviction. But it can no longer serve as proof of it.

When words become cheap, behavior becomes the new currency of trust.