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Automate it and the signal dies
Copies lose value
Thousands of carbon-copy job applications with the same keywords in the same places have lost their value, because everyone sends them. Cold outreach emails with the same syntax and the same personalization dropped into bracketed slots have lost it too. They can even carry negative signal: an email or application that's obviously AI-automated triggers an aversion, which makes it worse than neutral.
Relationships too
Relationships work the same way. A few friends used an AI agent to send their partners flowers and loving notes every week. The magic wore off right around the time their partners realized it was automated.
Why more shots fail
That is why sending more shots no longer helps. Job applications and networking look like a numbers game, but with each shot costing near zero, more shots lower the odds of success. Targeted, precise, hyper-individualized effort takes real time, so it goes to a few people instead of thousands.
Why does a signal lose value once it is cheap?
A signal is useful only when it separates people who have something from people who do not. Michael Spence's 1973 model showed that a signal works when the cost of sending it is lower for the genuine candidate than for the pretender. Automation removes that gap, because everyone can send it at nearly zero cost. The signal then stops separating anyone, and receivers learn to ignore it.
What is the rule that measures stop working when targeted?
It is known as Goodhart's law, after British economist Charles Goodhart, who described the idea in a 1975 paper on monetary policy. Anthropologist Marilyn Strathern later gave it the wording most people know: when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. A keyword-stuffed resume is an example, since keywords originally indicated relevant experience. Once applicants aim for the keywords themselves, they no longer indicate it.
Why does an automated kind gesture feel hollow?
Psychologist Justin Kruger and colleagues published a 2004 paper on what they called the effort heuristic. They found that people rate a poem, a painting, or a suit of armor as higher in quality when they believe more effort went into making it. A gesture works the same way, and its warmth comes partly from the sender's time and attention. When a person learns the work was done by software, the perceived effort drops to near zero and the value drops with it.
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