The Solution for Writers in the Wake of AI Writing

The Big Question is "Are you an artist or are you only an artist when it pays to be one?"

A few years ago I worked for a remote company as a Senior Copywriting Manager. I wrote eBooks, white papers, and marketing copy as well as hired and trained younger copywriters. I didn't entirely care for the specific business (they bought and sold people's online data and then used it to target sales for other companies) but the work was fine and I worked from home during a pandemic.

After a year and change, the CEO (who had made a few seriously risky moves that didn't pay off) called me. He wanted me to write a code-script for an AI to effectively write the copy that I had been writing.

"I don't write code, how is it you expect I'll be able do that? Are you suggesting I write a code that essentially replaces me?"

"No... well, yeah, I guess so. It just makes more business sense. How long would it take you to learn how to code?"

"A year? I'm not sure if this is a pivot I'm interested in."

"What? You think you're just going to write stuff when companies can use these things? I gave you a Grammarly account. I gave you a CopySmith account. What's the difference?"

"I didn't use either of those. The most I'll do is spellcheck. I don't think this direction you're taking is all that interesting to me."

He waited for me to quit rather than can me because then he wouldn't be on the hook for unemployment or severance. It was fine. I moved on.

Jump to a few years later. I’m in Wichita, KS. I’m sitting in the public library for an author talk sponsored by Watermark Books, one of the country’s most prolific independent bookstores. It’s packed. The author, Sarah Penner, tells the crowd about her leap into becoming a published writer after a decade working in finance. She mentions that many in the audience are probably writers but would be embarrassed to admit it because the road to getting published is hard.

Look like the ascendency of Artificial Intelligence programming is going to make it harder.

The Jobs Most Exposed to ChatGPT

Accountants are among the professionals whose careers are most exposed to the capabilities of generative artificial intelligence, according to a new study. The researchers found that at least half of accounting tasks could be completed much faster with the technology.

The same was true for mathematicians, interpreters, writers and nearly 20% of the U.S. workforce, according to the study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and OpenAI, the company that makes the popular AI tool ChatGPT. 

That shivering sound you hear across the internet is the quaking of journalists, essayists, authors, and copywriters everywhere. True to form, CEOs like my former employer are going to flock to this model. The aforementioned CopySmith software lets you type in a few keywords and cranks out a ready-to-use blog post in seconds and many business owners are going buy the newer versions and save the expense and hassle of employing actual writers and we all know it.

Penner writes genre fiction and seems to be doing quite well. A full-time writer since March 2021, she is generating interesting ideas and her publisher is buying them based on pitches because those of us who read buy those books. Her writing is infused with her personality which is something an AI can’t replicate—yet.

I recall a moment back in 2014, when I was the local Chicago host of the storytelling show The Moth. One of the devices used to keep things interactive at the show were slips of paper distributed to the audience that encouraged them to submit "tweets" of their own personal connections to the theme. The host then read these in between stories while the judges conferred.

”After writing for 20 years I finally realized that I was a WRITER...and believed it.”

It occurred to me at the time that we have elevated artistry onto a strange pedestal that requires a belief in oneself to declare legitimacy in the job title. No one (sane) would say "I've been fixing toilets for 20 years and I finally realized that I was a PLUMBER...and believed it." I've never heard of a garbage collector needing to believe he was, indeed, a garbage collector in order to feel good about collecting your trash at 4AM.

Mind you, there is a difference between a commercially successful artist, a talented artist, a brilliant artist and a bad artist. Maybe the writer in question is just a bad writer. So what? That, in and of itself, does not mean he or she is not a WRITER. It just means he or she isn't particularly good at it after 20 years. Or MAYBE...It took he or she 20 years to become a confident writer. It's that belief thing that sticks out. Only an artist feels the need to believe in his or herself in order to feel validated in the label. A pig farmer doesn't need to believe in his title—he raises pigs. That is the proof in the pudding.

A random night in Chicago circa 2016. Word Across Generations at the fabulous Chopin Theatre. Poetry. Inspiring, intelligent, moving poetry. On a stage. A post-show discussion.

"For poetry to be meaningful it has to mean something."—Haki Madhubuti

A young cat gets up to the mic. He spells out his situation—inspired by calls for the youth to avoid aggression and violence in their lives, he discovers poetry and delves into it head first. He then discovers that there's no money in the field. He has found his passion but cannot make a living doing it.

And I thought, "So?"

Anyone can be an artist. Art—an awful lot of it—can be created and displayed or performed for virtually no money up front. A poet writes poetry. It costs nothing to write poetry but the time. A playwright can sit down and write a play and spend no money down except for the coffee and cigarettes.

The Big Question is "Are you an artist or are you only an artist when it pays to be one?"

Because if you're only an artist when there's a carrot on the end of that stick, you're a tourist.

So, how does a writer handle the coming cyborg overthrow? How does someone who writes beat the Terminator 800 coming for his job?

Have a point of view that is specific to you. AI can do a lot of stuff but having its own unique perspective is not in its wheelhouse. AI isn't great at personal narrative or interesting metaphors. Lean in to them. Write stories about people, not figures. Fiction writers still have the edge over AI. Journalists are screwed but Op Ed writers have an advantage. Copywriting, SEO scripting, and informational ebook writing are the overhead projectors of the labor force.

Writers should look to musicians and filmmakers before them. Software has made anyone with the desire into a credible musician. With autotune technology, one doesn't even need to be able sing on key. Filmmakers are confronted with AI that can reproduce the work of dead actors, de-age current actors, and erase the need to shoot anywhere but a soundstage.

Musicians turned to live performances rather than relying on recorded music because unless they were already famous before the ease of digital downloads came into play, there was no money for them. Filmmakers without the long career path doubled down on personal stories that defied the franchise-building of the mega-studios.

Penner told the story of her first book. She sent it out to every literary agent she could find and was rejected 134 times. What she realized was that the vast majority of literary agents are white liberal women. She was told that her book, about two women at war only to have a man come in and solve their dispute, wasn't what they were looking for. She took a beat and her second book is about a woman who creates poisons for other women to kill their husbands. It was picked up in five queries. It debuted in the NYT top ten bestseller's list. She read the room and wrote to the market.

Her stories were unlike stories that AI could access because they were unique and specific to her perspective and imagination. AI has no imagination so if you want your writing to be irreplaceable by a robot, use yours.