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Why I Still Do My Own Writing Even Though I Use AI
Key takeaways
- Use AI for research, thought partnership and editing, but don’t rely on it for writing.
- Writing is the best way to distill and clarify thoughts.
- Writing makes concepts more concrete and helps improve strategy.
- The hard work of writing is its own reward and gives meaning to the practice.
- History proves the lasting power of human-made creations even during technological change.
I remember the first time I used ChatGPT. I had this weird sensation—a cross between seeing a ghost and free falling—as words magically appeared on the screen in response to my question. I imagine this is what it was like to see a light bulb turn on or hear a voice emerge from a telephone for the first time. Part unnatural, part amazing, part terrifying.
I wondered if, as a writer, I am the 21st century version of a lamp lighter: soon to be displaced. But the more I use AI, the less I use it for writing. Call me a Luddite, stubborn, or inefficient. I don’t care. I know that writing is one of the best avenues for thinking, and nothing can replace that—especially not AI.
Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash
How I use AI
I use Perplexity AI to help me research, ChatGPT and Claude as a thought partner, and Notebook LM to help me collate documents, organize notes, and audit content. I use AI as a first editor when I’m feeling uncertain or know I’ll get a lot of client feedback on something. I use it as an internal creative reviewer to poke holes and point out areas of opportunity. But I hardly ever use it to outline or draft my writing assignments because I prefer to do the work myself, which helps me do better work in the future.
Why I don’t use AI to write
When I applied to MFA programs, I had to explain why I write. It was such a basic question, yet it plagued me in its profundity. At first, I thought, “Well, I love books.” I wanted to do what the authors who wrote my favorite books did. I wanted to make people feel and think new things. It sounded trite. I couldn’t submit an essay about aspiring to be a copycat.
The more I thought about it and tried to write about it—tried being the operative word—the more I landed on the truth. I wrote to discover. To discover what I thought, of course, but more so to discover the world around me. What made people tick. Why they said what they said. Why things happened. How they could be different.
There is nothing more clarifying than attempting to write. I say this after 10+ years in therapy and practicing meditation. This is why journaling is such a powerful practice for writers and non-writers alike. If you really want to know what you think about something, write it out. I dare you.
I’m a better content strategist because I also write the content I propose. I can see where my strategy faltered or where it was short-sighted once I get into the meat of a project. I can reorganize the outline for a better flow or cut a section because I unearthed something more important through an interview or in an early draft.
Being a writer creates an inherent intimacy with the subject matter. It’s more concrete, less theoretical. It’s the difference between your idea of the project and the actual project.
Your idea is always perfect because it’s only half-formed. Once you hit the hard reality of putting pen to paper or fingers on the keyboard, things inevitably change. That finished product isn’t perfect, but it’s more honest because you had to grapple with time, words, and the blinking cursor mocking your every letter.
Maybe it’s naive on my part to want to hold on to the often-painful process of writing. I am, after all, a writer who loves having written (in the past tense). Often, I feel physically pained writing. My back aches, there’s little space between my ears and shoulders, my butt’s gone numb. There’s nothing more I want in that moment than to jump out of my skin.
Yet I know the post-writing high that awaits. That weightless, anything-is-possible feeling of joy mixed with pride. My favorite thing is looking back at something I’ve written and not recognizing it as my own. “Oh wow,” I think, “I wrote that!”
Photo by RDNE on Pexels
Human creativity in the age of technology
The more our tech-enabled world seems hellbent on eradicating friction, the more I want to double down on the hard things. Like relationships in all the ways: family, work, friends, romance. Like working out until there’s so much sweat dripping down my face, I can’t see anything. Like sewing by hand until my fingers cramp. Like writing.
For now, I’m a better writer than AI (at least I think so 😬). It might not stay that way much longer, but there’s so much actual human writers bring to the table that AI doesn’t: lived experience, a distinct point of view, personal taste, idiosyncrasies. If everyone uses AI, we risk creating the language equivalent of oatmeal. And you can only ingest so much oatmeal.
Doing my own writing helps me to better understand our clients’ businesses and their audiences. It gives me a chance to put myself in their shoes. My favorite part of my job is interviewing subject-matter experts to get information that’s only in their heads. (Until we all get Neuralink implants, it’s important to remember that the vast quantity of life hasn’t been digitized.)
Often, interacting with experts and diving deep into projects sparks innovation. This is how I realized Medicare sales agents needed a better tool to match beneficiaries to the right plans for them. And how I realized agents with an average book of business of 500 don’t have enough hours in a week to onboard clients one on one; they need to onboard members at scale.
I’m a firm believer that no creative work is ever wasted. It always leads you to the next draft or next project. All of the time and effort of research, interviews, and outlining goes back into the final deliverable. It’s like an iceberg; you only see the top 10%.
I’m dedicated to my craft. Maybe there will be a slow-writing movement in the future for marketing like the slow-food movement for agriculture. I’ve said before that I think human-made creations will be more valuable than AI-generated ones. That could turn out to be totally cringe and 100% wrong.
But history proves the staying power of human-made creations in the face of technological change. People still weave by hand, still throw pots, still go to the theater. Yes, the number of people practicing these traditions and the audience for those creations might be smaller, but it’s less transactional and stickier. It’s more about connection. I’ll gamble on connection over speed every time.