How to Leverage AI to Pretend it’s Not Taking Your Job

Beginning several years ago, when artificial intelligence decided to take a real shot at a writing career, writers’ attitudes went through a quick and sociologically fascinating ride. It started with deliberate ignorance, elevated to cockiness, moved into proactive mitigation (i.e. blogging), then desperation and, now, resentment. (Normally, this last one would be acceptance, but writers are incapable of acceptance so although acceptance is required in order to reach resentment, the period of acceptance is so brief and so unconscious that it needn’t be included.)

Deliberate Ignorance

“Artificial intelligence? Eh, doesn’t affect me.”

Upon hearing about AI’s foray into everything, writers were merely one group among many who naturally assumed a robot could never replace their specialty and thus there was no reason to even think about it beyond maybe a pretentious chortle at the mere thought.

Cockiness

“Oh, AI is writing sports recaps now? The writing is terrible, this is ridiculous, this will never catch on. I am the most talented writer who ever lived and no robot is going to supplant me.”

This odd shift from writers’ fragile egos comparing themselves to other writers and their fragile egos into all writers comparing themselves with inferior computer systems was quite a moment. No longer was one writer better than another, or more suited for one project than another, or different from another in anyway; suddenly, all writers were geniuses and robots were a fleeting and embarrassing experiment that would certainly disappear.

Yes, the writing on those sports recaps was terrible but no, the people reading them didn’t care. Was the winner accurate? The score? Yes? Done.

Yikes. Perhaps a realization.

Proactive Mitigation

“I need to do something about this.”

This is the phase in which I started noticing anything about any of this as all the blogs started littering the internet. You know the pieces: How Writers Can Leverage AI for ROI or How I Use AI to Assist Me or Six Ways to Maximize AI with Your Own Eloquent Prose or Why AI is a Valuable Tool and Nothing More, etc.

I should note I made up all those titles and if any of them are real, it is a coincidence. But the point is the same: writers thought it was time to justify their jobs by saying they can work with AI rather than against it. That is, “Don’t fire me, AI isn’t good enough, but don’t worry, I accept that AI is a thing and now I’m pretending AI and I can work together and that I’m the best in the world at working with AI so clearly I deserve a raise.”

At some point during this phase, we lost the word “writing” as it, along with all other artistic pursuits, became known simply as “content.” It’s hard for a cocky writer to remain cocky when he’s no longer allowed to call himself a writer. Now he’s a content creator. A cocky one, sure, but according to the world, not a writer. On this website, writers are still writers, so we’ll continue to use that archaic term.

During proactive mitigation, writers started comparing themselves to each other again, which was refreshing if not needlessly toxic. But all the blogs ended with the same gist: “AI is a great tool, but an experienced professional like me is the real answer.”

Many of these types of blogs were from writers at marketing agencies, which was a splendid tactic. Writing such a piece impresses the bosses at the agencies because that message is a great way to convince clients to continue paying gobs and gobs of money for copywriters to sit in meetings, which in itself is a reason to keep the copywriters on staff. Plus, the initiative alone for a writer to write that piece showed the bosses such a writer was a valuable employee, even if his skill itself was no longer valuable.

The inevitable was coming: cheaper (free) writing that is good enough is always preferable to pristine literature that is expensive.

Desperation

“I need to find a new career.”

This phase didn’t last very long. Some writers tried outlining all the ways AI can’t be trusted for accuracy. Others stuck with the it-has-no-inherent-style argument. Others simply went on and did something else with their lives. Those who stayed, though, have successfully entered the resentment stage, mostly because the reason none of those other arguments worked is this: AI is free.

Resentment

“I’m losing income over this.”

Writers used to resent other writers who didn’t charge enough. If you charge half what I charge, then you’re devaluing the whole industry. Why would a client ever pay double your rate for me, even if I’m twice as good (or vice versa)? You are cheating yourself and the rest of us by charging so little.

But now we have these AI things that cost absolutely nothing. Free. Undercutting the undercutters. No matter how inaccurate, how soulless, how clunky it may be, AI is free and therefore far superior than anything that costs money.

Say the wax seal on your toilet comes loose. It needs to be replaced. Are you a plumber? Probably not. Do you call a plumber? Probably not. Why would you call (and pay) an expert who will do the job quickly, correctly and reliably when you could watch a YouTube video, make seven trips to the hardware store, slice open your wrist at some point, throw out your back and drench at least two outfits in order to complete a job you assess as “I think I did it” that even you can’t say without skepticism?

Because a plumber would charge you money for parts (one wax seal with a small markup) and labor (maybe an hour) whereas you doing it yourself only requires the cost of parts (three wax seals plus several assorted bolts to replace the one you broke) and labor (13 hours of your time over three days).

Of course this is absurd and hiring the plumber is the right call, but too many people make the wrong call there and will make the wrong call when it comes to writing, too.

When, “Trust me, I’m good” is the only thing you can say and the answer is always, “But this is free,” it is only possible to feel resentment.

Epilogue

How to leverage AI to pretend it’s not taking your job? Obviously that is a title full of jest in that the reality is AI is taking your job. That’s fine. Other industries are naturally springing from this development. Writers can now position themselves as AI copyeditors to make sure the grammar is good or maybe AI integrators to really lean into that how-to-leverage-AI thing or perhaps AI prompters who know better than anyone how to phrase the questions and demands of the AI programs.

In fairness to this semi-hyperbolic diatribe, search engines are doing their best to penalize AI-heavy copy. And, obviously, I prefer human-written literature of all types. And maybe there truly is value to leveraging and integration and value-added solutions and synergy and scalability and circling back and the like, but I’ve never actually read any of those blogs I skewer here. Just the titles. Which, even before AI, is all anyone needs. Right?