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?
Read More...
Efficiency is good, right? Companies of all kinds tout their efficiency. Logistics companies get things delivered quickly. Appliance companies build units to efficiently use energy. Emergency rooms brag about their “short” wait times. Everyone wants efficiency and everyone claims they have it, but even if it appears that way on the outside, we know what’s going on inside these companies. Efficiency only rewards the inefficient while punishing the efficient, whose very efficiency is the cause of their inefficiency.
Now that we’ve re-read that efficient sentence seven or eight times, let’s explore some examples.
Phone and Video Calls
You have a call at 9 a.m. so you dial in at 8:58 to make sure you’re on time without having to endure too much conference-call small talk. You’re alone. Or waiting for the host to let you in. Or staring at one person you barely know, hoping that person doesn’t address you while you wait for the 94 other essential members of the call. Your timeliness is efficient and surely everyone else will have the same mindset: let’s start this thing at the scheduled time and end it as soon as all essential information is gleaned.
Instead, you’re still staring at the screen at 9:03 a.m. while the host says, “We’ll wait a couple minutes to let everyone else join.” Those couple minutes go by and people trickle in, each requiring additional time to insincerely apologize for being late. By the time the call starts (9:12 a.m.), your efficiency has cost you 14 minutes of your life.
CC Me on That
It’s not enough to do one’s job anymore. Now, you need to copy your boss (to prove you’re working), your underling (sham training exercise), your six colleagues to whom you might briefly mention this at some point in the distant future (doesn’t hurt to give background), your dentist (because you mentioned this project during dental-office small talk last week) and your personal email address just in case the work servers shut down and you need to access this crucial email at 11 p.m. on Saturday.
Inevitably, you forget to copy someone at first, then send another email with the very helpful “+ Sue” and then feel like you’ve completed your job for the day. That false feeling of accomplishment soon disappears as every person you copied chimes in with unsolicited inane feedback or, worse, “Thanks!”
What you’ve done is create an email vortex of people proving they’re working by replying to an email. Only one person doesn’t reply: the recipient, i.e. the only person you need to reply. Had you sent the email to the real recipient and no one else, thus avoiding the inbox clogged with nonsense, you likely would’ve received a quick reply and accomplished your task. Instead, nothing happens aside from your boss gaining respect for your uninvolved colleagues who said “Thanks!”
Planning to React
Naturally, when you have some kind of event coming up, whether a client presentation or full-scale extravaganza or even something as mundane as a simple meeting, your tendency toward efficiency has you spending time planning for the event.
For the sake of using an example, let’s call it a company picnic. You prepare everything you need. Inform everyone who needs to be informed. Everything is finalized weeks in advance and you’re ready. Then, the day before (or morning of) the event, your inbox is stuffed with hastily written reply-all messages trying to change every detail of the thing. And, because they’re hastily written, everyone in the company is copied, misunderstandings occur and the “conversation” deviates into whatever the misunderstanding is. Because of the looming event, tensions get high between at least two of your colleagues who begin throwing personal insults at each other while still replying all.
After all that, with every suggested change canceling out every other suggested change, the event goes on exactly as you planned it aside from two things: (1) the whole thing is now your boss’s idea and (2) you had to buy more napkins because Dylan, the first-week intern who was copied on the email, was unsure if what you had would be enough (your boss’s boss liked the initiative and replied “gr8 idea thx,” which your boss interpreted as a top-priority directive and replied all while addressing you, “Hey! Can you go get another case of napkins ASAP! Per below! Thanks Dylan for the idea!!!”).
Instead of being efficient and spending all that time planning, you could’ve taken a vacation.
The Efficiency of Inefficiency
Every time you attempt to be efficient, you end up with another huge chunk of wasted time while the inefficient show up late, prove their worth by saying “thanks” to something that doesn’t pertain to them and taking credit for your company picnic. Plus, they get all these perks while doing whatever they want with their time. They take the vacations you don’t take, fake the illnesses you actually have, disrespect your time while you respect theirs and end up with raises.
What do you get? Self-respect. Maybe.
It appears the true key to efficiency is egregious inefficiency. If you’d like to discuss further, we can meet at the company picnic. It starts at noon so I’ll be there at 11:58. See you at 1:30.
Read More...
Recently, while moseying through the A concourse at the DTW airport, two teen boys hurried past me in the opposite direction. I’m estimating they were each 15 years old, based partially on a peripheral glance but mainly on the not-quite-high-but-definitely-not-low weird voice most 15-year-old boys and some unfortunate men have.
While they sped by, one teen said to the other, verbatim, “If I get a girlfriend, and if she has a Notre Dame t-shirt, I’m dumping her.”
What an astounding statement.
The boys were moving quickly, so that’s the only sentence I heard, which is probably for the best because now we can speculate.
If-Then Statements
The kid, whom we’re going to call Chase and who is possibly the normal age to be taking geometry, makes a pretty fantastic if-then statement, including two ifs.
IF I get a girlfriend and IF she has a Notre Dame t-shirt, THEN I’m dumping her.
Chase implies he wants a girlfriend. If he didn’t want one, he would’ve said, “If I had a girlfriend,” but he says, “If I get a girlfriend” as if he’s actively pursuing the situation. This also makes it less likely he’s lying to his friend about not having a girlfriend, which is already unlikely, as teens will lie about having girlfriends who go to different schools but will never lie about not having a girlfriend. Unless they have a second girlfriend, but that’s too advanced for our exercise.
Now, let’s invade Chase’s hypothetical future girlfriend’s closet. Does she have a Notre Dame t-shirt? Almost certainly, Chase is talking about the university and not the cathedral. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a Notre-Dame de Paris t-shirt, nor can I envision a kid having such strict standards against French Gothic architecture. But if she does have an offensive Notre Dame t-shirt, she’s history, even though she presently only exists in the future.
Being that we were in the Detroit airport, it’s probable Chase is a fan of the sports teams for either Michigan State University or the University of Michigan, with a lower likelihood of being a fan of USC. In any of those cases, Notre Dame would be a rival. Granted, there is no guarantee the kid is from Michigan just because he was in a Michigan airport, but when factoring in how much he hates Notre Dame as well as Delta’s flight schedules, it’s probably a Michigan-related collegiate allegiance.
Why would a 15-year-old kid care so much about college athletics that he would pre-dump a girlfriend he doesn’t even have but desperately wants?
Jealousy
My official theory: Chase is jealous. These two kids have a third, unseen friend. The unseen friend has a girlfriend who has a Notre Dame t-shirt.
Based on Chase’s tone as he spoke his nonsense, he wasn’t jealous of the kid to whom he was talking. He was talking about someone else. Someone who does have a girlfriend. Probably a recently added girlfriend.
Chase is not able to spend as much time with the third friend anymore (which would be fine if Chase were the one with the new girlfriend), so Chase hates the girlfriend, whom we’ll call Our Lady of Paris. Our Lady of Paris was wearing a Notre Dame t-shirt recently and Chase decided that will be what he hates about her and thus his unseen friend.
Still, why not simply say he hates her? Why the asinine if-then statement that now bans him for life from having a girlfriend with a Notre Dame t-shirt? And no, he can’t be mature and be happy for his friend; he’s a filthy teen.
If he finds out a girl has a Notre Dame t-shirt in advance, does he ask her to be his girlfriend just so he can dump her? Or does the t-shirt discovery have to come after the doomed union of teen souls? Can he use it as an out, gifting his future girlfriend a Notre Dame t-shirt when he tires of her so he can then dump her based on his personal policy?
No. He’s never going to dump anyone. Regardless, Chase, as a fan of absurd contingencies and a pessimistic optimist for our youth, I wish you the best in your pursuit of a girlfriend who doesn’t own a Notre Dame t-shirt.
Read More...