Over the last couple of years I’ve run into a curious adversary. A doppelgänger. He writes clean, grammatically correct, structurally sound articles. He claims to be me, but I do not recognize myself in what I read.
My LinkedIn feed has turned into an infinite scroll of doppelgänger-generated content. The rough edges of writing have been sanded down into pithy phrases, listicles, and corrective antithesis.
It’s not only not me, it’s not you either.
It’s tempting to let the doppelgänger do his thing. Write the smooth prose and hit publish. What starts off as a distorted reflection morphs as you publish more. The cadence, beats, arguments, and calls to action start to sound like everything else on your feed. From a digital twin to a clone army.
The doppelgänger is the product of billions of dollars and millions of hours spent teaching LLMs to sound helpful, polished, and sane. The result is writing that feels safe, agreeable, and eerily familiar. Writing with all the now notorious hallmarks of AI-generated content.
Retreat is an option. Step away from the keyboard. Leave LinkedIn to the listicles. Buy an artisanal notebook and a fountain pen. Retire to the countryside to write poetry.
But there’s another way.
It’s time to put the doppelgänger to work. The AI tools have options. Claude and OpenAI have skills. Gemini has Gems. xAI may have an anime character or something.
I built a writing workflow with one goal: take back control. I start with a brain dump, usually a long voice note. Then three skills. editing-prose pressure-tests the argument and cleans up bad grammar (English isn’t my first language, it’s just how I hallucinate). my-voice keeps the doppelgänger in his place. crayon-simple makes sure the core idea comes through and doesn’t get lost in asides and in-jokes. Then I rewrite, line by line.
The doppelgänger doesn’t go away. Sometimes I catch him. Sometimes he sneaks in an em dash – he’s sneaky. I just try and make sure he doesn’t get the final word.