Tell me — is this Ai?
It's 2am, I can't sleep, the book I am reading may be written by Ai. Luckily I have ways to winkle the bastard out.
Among other things in life, I am a Newstalk radio host. As such I must keep abreast of the news. So I spend a lot of time researching current events. Well to be more honest I should spend a lot of time researching current events. I actually spend most of my time scrolling through F1 memes. If I am not doing that, I like to read nerdy F1 related books.
Unable to sleep tonight, due to pulling a stomach muscle at the gym I decided I needed to branch out and find something new. I didn’t. Instead I slipped into old habits and searched up yet another F1 tech book on my Kindle. I found this shitter.
Vaynor , Elliot . How a Formula 1 Race Car Works What Makes It the Fastest-Car Machine in the World?: Engineering, Science, and Innovation Behind Building the Ultimate Racing Vehicle.
I wanted heavy eyelids. Instead this book has made the night darker and more full of terrors. When we humans can’t sleep, we humans want a human connection - not a nothing. This book is a nothing.
Recently successful kiwi comic and friend of mine Melanie Bracewell posted this on X
Ai is becoming so recognisable i feel like it will eventually give people the same ick they used to get seeing the comic sans font in the wild.
and then..
I feel like comic sans was so hated because it was trying to look like human hand writing but it was too clean around the edges.
I thought it was an interesting observation and it’s exactly how I feel about Vaynor , Elliot . How a Formula 1 Race Car Works What Makes It the Fastest-Car Machine in the World?: Engineering, Science, and Innovation Behind Building the Ultimate Racing Vehicle. It’s like comics sans. It’s trying to be human but something ain’t right.
Tonight, as we speak, Vaynor , Elliot . How a Formula 1 Race Car Works What Makes It the Fastest-Car Machine in the World?: Engineering, Science, and Innovation Behind Building the Ultimate Racing Vehicle is dragging me deep into the Uncanny Valley. The more I read, the more vaguely informed I get and the more alone I feel. The darkness is surrounding me and I am beginning to suspect instead of ingesting the point of view of a human, I am simply alone in my bed staring into the void of Ai.
So I have decided to share my point of view, on it, here, in the hopes that doing so will make me sleepy.
Because a point of view is a very human thing. As legendary music producer Rick Rubin recently told a16z
“The reason we go to the artists we go to, or the writers we go to, or the filmmakers we go to, is for their point of view. The AI doesn’t have a point of view. Its point of view is what you tell it. You can have a great script for a film, give it to five great directors, and you’ll get five very different movies. It’s true with everything. If you give the same song to different artists, they interpret it differently.”
The following is from Vaynor , Elliot . How a Formula 1 Race Car Works What Makes It the Fastest-Car Machine in the World?. The book I am up late reading. Am I paranoid? Am I going crazy? or is this thing devoid of a human point of view?
Steering Wheel – The Driver’s Command Center "The steering wheel of a Formula 1 car is not just a tool for turning—it’s a cockpit within the cockpit, a hub of control that places an entire car’s complexity at the driver’s fingertips." In Formula 1, the steering wheel is more than a device for guiding the car around corners. It’s a sophisticated piece of technology that serves as the driver’s primary interface with the car. Packed with an array of buttons, dials, switches, and displays, it allows the driver to control virtually every aspect of the car’s performance, from gear shifts to energy recovery systems, in real time.
The other day, British American Youtuber Evan Edinger, whose point of view I very much enjoy, put together a list of ways to spot Ai writing. He notes that Linkedin’s raison d’être being positive self promotion, it has become a hot bed of meaninglessly enthusiastic vacuous Ai generated posting. Evan is focused on outing Linkediners, but I think his Ai ‘giveaways’ pop up all over the shop. So I have decided to use his investigative techniques against this book. Hopefully doing so makes me sleepy.
Frequent em-dashes (—) Large language models use em-dashes way more than us humans do. Choosing them in places where we would use a comma or full stop. Em dashes (—) are punctuations used to show a break in a sentence. It's longer than a hyphen (-) and an en dash (–). It’s name comes from its length. It’s the width of a capital "M". The thing is, it’s pretty annoying to create one with our fingers. To type an em dash on a Mac you have to press Option + Shift + Hyphen. Human’s can’t be bothered doing that, so we don’t. We just use a comm, full stop or hyphen because they’r easy. LLMs don’t have to press keys, so they splay em dashes all over the shop. Look out for em-dashes.
"The steering wheel of a Formula 1 car is not just a tool for turning—it’s a cockpit within the cockpit, a hub of control that places an entire car’s complexity at the driver’s fingertips."
A smoking gun?
It’s not just X — it’s Y” parallel structure. For some reason Ai loves the formula “It’s not just…, it’s also…” . You get these with some em-dashes and it’s time to get suspicious.
The steering wheel of a Formula 1 car is not just a tool for turning—it’s a cockpit within the cockpit
Lists of three (or other neat odd numbers). We humans love threes. Punchlines often come on the third beat. Evan points out that we use this structure all the time, but not with the same clockwork regularity. There is away that Ai constantly uses threes or fives that is punishingly soulless and it’s everywhere. The evidence is mounting.
it’s a cockpit within the cockpit, a hub of control that places an entire car’s complexity at the driver’s fingertips
Vague, upbeat jargon and filler adjectives - Ai blasts words like innovative, elevate, robust, practical solutions. Ai loves non-committal vocabulary. Tick.
It’s a sophisticated piece of technology that serves as the driver’s primary interface with the car.
Chronic restatement and over-explanation - LLM make the same points, adding needless background. It loves to clarify obvious things. There’s this constant padding and bloating of answers that adds little value. (this one is vague, but once you see it, you see it everywhere and I am seeing it everywhere).
Forced and odd analogies & similes - AI enjoys a strained comparisons. Statements that try to sound profound but feel awkwardly meaningless or pointless. Tick.
Fails the “vibe check. This is the main one for me. This is what first alerted my that my book might be written by a robot. The wording feels soulless, no sense of humanity behind it. It’s the Uncanny Vally. An authentic human real personality is hard to fake. Absolutely.
Now you are armed with what Evan is laying down. What do you think about the ‘writer’ of my book?
This from the chapter on Suspension.
In a sport where fractions of a second can define a season, the suspension is an indispensable tool for finding those elusive margins. It’s not just about absorbing bumps—it’s about delivering precision, enabling the driver to push the car to its absolute limits. With its seamless integration of performance and aerodynamics, the suspension stands as a testament to the ingenuity that makes Formula 1 the ultimate motorsport.
Can you see it yet?
This from the chapter on breaking.
Cooling mechanisms ensure the brakes remain effective under extreme conditions, while the integration of the MGU-K showcases how F1 continues to push the boundaries of technology. Together, these elements form a braking system that is not only a marvel of performance but also a cornerstone of the car’s overall efficiency and strategy. In Formula 1, braking isn’t just about slowing down—it’s about controlling the immense forces at play, harnessing energy, and setting the stage for the next burst of speed. It’s a constant reminder that in this sport, even slowing down is an art form.
Is this real???
This from the chapter on safety.
In a sport defined by speed and danger, safety is the invisible hero that allows drivers to compete at the limit while returning home unharmed. It’s a testament to the ingenuity and dedication of the Formula 1 community, proving that even in the pursuit of speed, human life remains the highest priority.
THERE IS NO POINT OF VIEW AND I AM ALL ALONE.
And how the fucking hell is safety an ‘invisible hero’. It’s not fucking invisible mate. It’s very fucking visible. Helmets, the massive curved bar placed above the driver's cockpit known as the Halo that you can’t bloody miss on all the cars, the massive head and neck support all the drivers wear. The fire retardant suits and hoods, the gloves. The fucking big green beautiful Aston Martin Vantage safety car. The yellow and red flags. The ambulances!!!!! How is safety an invisible hero? Thats a pretty fucking forced and odd analogies or similes right there mate.
So I looked up the ‘Author’ Elliot Vaynor. No Social Media, no contact, no publisher that I can find to reach out to.
I can’t sleep and I can’t find anything about ‘him’ online accept the other ‘books’ he has ‘written’.
In conclusion.
In the middle of the night, we reach for books and such to connect with a human point of view, something to hold hands with as we fight the terror of night, something real so you don’t feel so alone, something to stop us from worrying about the GST coding we have to get round to tomorrow. But what do we get? We get the bloody void gazing back into us.
It’s not just hallow—it’s also shit.
Anyway you seem busy I’ll let you go. Good Night. Bless Bless Bless. Give Em A Taste of Kiwi!
Love it, Matt! I have to ask - did you sprinkle in the spelling mistakes to prove that you, a human, wrote this? Clever
I fracking love em-dashes, and need to use 'em in my work. I love that the tide is turning against LLM, in that people currently use em-dashes to help red-flag their soulless enshittification of the internet, because the coders who feed the datasets of LLM will very soon remove em-dashes from LLMs, and I can go back to using them without prejudice.
Fuck, I hope.
This was a great read, but! Cataclysmically awful examples - thank you for reading 'How a Formula 1 Race Car Works What Makes It the Fastest-Car Machine in the World?: Engineering, Science, and Innovation Behind Building the Ultimate Racing Vehicle' so we don't have to.