I’m a committed introvert – but no AI will take away the joy I get from other people | Emma Beddington

<p>While it might be soothing to think you could replace social interactions like book clubs with ChatGPT, subcontracting human thought out to a bot will never bring happiness </p><p>This is depressing: according to <a href="https://www.thecut.com/article/would-you-use-chatgpt-to-cheat-at-hobbies.html">the Cut</a>, people are using AI to solve escape room puzzles and cheat at trivia nights. Surely, that is the definition of spoiling your own fun? “Like going into a corn maze and just wanting a straight line to the end,” says one TikToker quoted in the article. There’s also an interview with a keen reader who uses ChatGPT as a book club replacement, scraping the internet and aggregating “stimulating opinions and perspectives”. All well and good (actually, no, it sounds bleak as hell) until he had a character’s death spoilered in the fantasy epic he had been enjoying.</p><p>Meanwhile, Substack seems to be clogging up with AI-generated essays. The nu-blogging platform is an earnestly artisanal space where writers craft their stuff; subcontracting that to a bot seems like the acme of pointlessness. Will Storr, who writes about storytelling, examines this boggling trend and the tells that give it away on <a href="https://willstorr.substack.com/p/scamming-substack">his own Substack</a>, including a penchant for what he calls “the impersonal universal”: sweeping statements that sound deep but aren’t. There is, he says, “A white-noise generality to its insights, an uncanny vagueness that makes the mind glaze over.”</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/09/no-ai-will-take-away-the-joy-i-get-from-other-people">Continue reading...</a>