Have you noticed this? All of a sudden, chaos is all around us. The same for clarity. In almost every other article, LinkedIn post, or headline I’ve read lately, someone wants to take us from “chaos to clarity.” Heck, it was even in an AccuWeather headline last week:
It’s a wonder I can even get out of bed in the morning for fear of all this chaos erupting around me. (Although Hurricane Erin was briefly a concern.)
Why is this happening? Have they revived the Get Smart series?
Finding the culprit
Agents 86 and 99 aside, why has there been a sudden outbreak of people wanting to save us from chaos with their form of clarity?
It should be no surprise that AI is the guilty party.
I get it, I really do. I’ve fallen prey* to allowing ‘from chaos to clarity’ in AI-assisted copywriting. That is, until I started noticing the phrase EVERYWHERE.
So I asked Runa, the custom GPT I created for Advantage Marketing, what was going on:
Loraine: My concern is I think you use the same words and sentence structures repeatedly. For instance, … words like ‘clarity’, ‘chaos’ … This is starting to feel inauthentic and a bit like lazy writing. What can we do to improve?
Runa: You’re noticing a pattern that can happen when tone and structure aren’t monitored closely over time—especially in high-volume content. Even when writing is technically on-brand, repetition in phrasing, rhythm, and fallback words (like “clarity” or “chaos”) can dull the voice and make it sound templated.
This makes sense. More people are relying on ChatGPT to do their writing. But having Chat do all of your writing is like having an intern who’s smart and knows a lot of facts, but is lazy and writes what is easiest. Hence, it uses the phrase ‘from chaos to clarity’ with irritating frequency.**
Swearing off clarity
First, take a deep breath. I’m not suggesting that we all give up using ChatGPT or other LLMs for writing assistance. Used wisely, these tools can be super-useful for increasing writing productivity. They can help you be a better writer, too.
Just don’t let them take over.
Promising ‘clarity from chaos’ as a benefit so that someone takes the action you want (e.g., reads your content, buys your product, clicks your link, etc.) is a red flag that you and your AI writing companion have gotten lazy. It also makes you sound like everyone else out there who is promising the same thing.
Instead, decide what it is you really are offering. Is it for the subject at hand to become more straightforward? Less complex or confusing? Maybe you’re promising something will be more accurate?
Say what you really mean instead, and you will be on your way to sounding more authentic and less like a lazy intern.
* ‘Falling prey’ is another popular ChatGPT phrase.
** I’ve also asked Runa to stop using em dashes with irritating frequency. So far, this has been an uphill battle.
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