Paul Graham rejects AI-written founder emails as deceptive
yc founder paul graham refuses to read ai-generated emails, equating their use to dishonesty and a signal of laziness that erodes trust.
y combinator founder paul graham announced he will not read emails written by ai, stating that using text generators for personal communication feels like being lied to and reflects poorly on the author's competence. his stance aligns with findings from an ohio state university study indicating that ai messages trigger social devaluation, causing recipients to perceive senders as insincere. a betterup labs survey of 1,150 us employees further quantifies this friction, revealing that 40% regularly receive shallow ai content from colleagues. the data shows that over half of employees feel annoyed by such communications, and roughly half rate the senders as less creative, capable, and trustworthy. researchers warn that careless ai deployment in communication risks damaging professional relationships by signaling that the sender is merely a passenger trying to avoid work.