> some formulaic letter, complete with all the required phatic flourishes

Why do you think that person reading your letter requires those phatic flourishes? Culturally I believe they serve as a form of proof-of-work: The effort is the point.

Written by an LLM, it becomes truluy valueless slop. Just don't generate the slop in the first place.

> I'd you're actually plowing though that slop yourself, you have only yourself to blame.

What a way to react to someone sincerely reading what you wrote them.

The effort is not the point. Communicating is the point. Up until very recently, there was no alternative way to send a letter without writing a letter. There was no need to prove work was done. Cultural changes are much slower than technological changes, and thus things continue to be culturally required despite no longer being useful.

The idea that someone should waste their time to "prove their work" to you is absurd. If I knew someone did, I would deliberately go out of my way to bury information in excessive AI slop for them.