From Kate Knibbs at Wired comes the news that over half of the longer posts at LinkedIn, a career networking site, are probably AI-generated:

The Microsoft-owned social media site for business professionals has embraced AI, even offering LinkedIn Premium subscribers access to its own in-house AI writing tools that can “rewrite” posts, profiles, and direct messages. The initiative appears to be working: Over 54 percent of longer English-language posts on LinkedIn are likely AI-generated, according to a new analysis shared exclusively with WIRED by the AI detection startup Originality AI. …

Originality scanned a sample of 8,795 public LinkedIn posts over 100 words long that were published from January 2018 to October 2024. For the first few years, the use of AI writing tools on LinkedIn was negligible. A major increase then occurred at the beginning of 2023. “The uptick happened when ChatGPT came out,” says Originality CEO Jon Gillham. At that point, Originality found the number of likely AI-generated posts had spiked 189 percent; it has since leveled off.

“Yes, That Viral LinkedIn Post You Read Was Probably AI-Generated,” November 26, 2024

Here’s the study.

The chatbot ChatGPT is believed to have spiked the popularity. We are told at ReadWrite, “Since the release of ChatGPT, which likely caused a surge in AI content, the ‘length of LinkedIn posts has significantly increased.’ On average, the posts seen now have a higher word count and this can be seen as having risen over time.”

Of course, many people use LinkedIn simply as a venue for notifications. So they don’t read the longer posts. Turns out, that is probably just as well.

In any event, as Knibbs points out, LinkedIn is possibly the best home for AI gen prose:

From one angle, LinkedIn may have inadvertently created the ideal laboratory for AI writing. Nobody’s logging on expecting profundity, hilarity, or sincerity. It’s the place where people strive to be the most anodyne versions of themselves, pleasant and inoffensive. Artificiality, in other words, is what everyone is expecting. “Probably AI-Generated,”

Not everyone thinks anodyne is a good development though. Elon Musk calls the whole thing “unbearably cringe” and says he “loses respect instantly for anyone who posts.” Might have something to do with loss of originality.

In the ideal scenario, AI readers will be reading the AI prose and the site will continue to be used mainly for notifications.