Performative AI-enhanced composition is to writing what Angel Flights disco party pants were to fashion in the 1970s: Both are embarrassing expressions of gauche, unbridled ostentation doomed to a short shelf life. Both deserve funerals to announce their extinction.
That AI-enhanced composition, which took off in 2023, has expired in 2026 became apparent to me after reading an Amazon review of Orgain peanut butter protein powder. The review slapped me in the face like a warning that I must never use AI as a co-writer because if you ask AI to perform for you, it will deliver the same bag of tricks an uncouth used-car salesman uses to deceive the gullible car buyer.
This cheap bag of tricks is evident throughout the protein powder review. The reviewer begins: “I’ve tried so many protein powders that my blender probably has trust issues.” The attempt at comedy by telling Amazon readers that your blender has trust issues announces that you wanted to be a comedian in another life but got stuck writing an AI-boosted Amazon review instead.
Then the reviewer complains about the horrible protein powders she endured before discovering Orgain: “Chalky ones, gritty ones, ones that taste like someone whispered ‘peanut butter’ into a bag of dirt.” That a substandard protein powder whispers “peanut butter” into a bag of dirt is a case of someone trying too hard to be funny. Writing with AI can do that to you. It can give you a facade of acerbic wit and verbal moxie that becomes part of your schtick. Eventually, not using AI in this manner makes you feel naked.
Not wanting to write in her natural state, the reviewer continues with the AI boost: “This stuff is ridiculously good. It tastes like actual peanut butter instead of a chemistry experiment, blends smoothly into smoothies, and somehow even makes my morning coffee feel like it came from a trendy café charging $9 a cup.” Comparing bad protein powder to a chemistry experiment gone awry is another example of AI enhancement. Telling the reader that Orgain powder elevates your home-brewed coffee to overpriced artisan coffee is an example of AI hyperbole going off the rails.
The review becomes less an appraisal of protein powder and more of a muscle-flex. In this regard, AI becomes a can of Muscle-Flex that you add to inferior writing the way you add Hamburger Helper to expired, off-color hamburger.
The AI-augmented praise continues: “No clumps. No weird aftertaste. No regretting my life choices halfway through the shaker bottle.” As someone who has experimented with AI for the last four years, I can attest that throwing in “regretting my life choices” is a familiar, overused tool of AI wit.
The AI-loving reviewer continues the hyperbole with her praise of Orgain: “And the best part? The price doesn’t require a second mortgage.” Comparing a high-priced protein powder to a second mortgage is another clichéd use of AI hyperbole. I see it all the time, not only in my own AI experiments but in my students’ writing as well.
Just as Angel Flights bell-bottoms could never flare horizontally enough, AI hyperbole can never be extreme enough. Over time, the extremes become mind-numbing. The earnest attempt to impress and razzle-dazzle becomes a sign of desperation rather than skill, talent, or good taste.
That the funeral for performative AI-enhanced composition has arrived in 2026 should cause us all to celebrate. It is an occasion to reclaim our authenticity and use AI the way it should be used: not as a co-author but as an editor. Our writing should belong to us and us alone. AI can correct grammar, help us achieve clarity and concision, and repair awkward sentence structure, but beyond that, we are venturing into the disco in our Angel Flights.
And we all know how that ended.
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