So essentially you are saying that AI is ghostwriting your articles and you are reviewing them and taking credit for it like everybody else does so it's okay? When I see books supposedly written by famous people that are obviously written by ghostwriters, even if the famous person gives them some information and tells them the topic, I have no respect for the famous person at all. It actually hurts my relationship with them, i.e. their brand. But that's just me.
I've also used AI to see if I can get better quality writing. I write the chapter and have AI review it. I've tried it several times with all four major AIs. It often changes the meaning of what I'm saying and it introduces AI speak. So, even though some of it was more eloquent, I chose to be authentic instead. But that's just me.
I think the basis of people reading the work and following it is the relationship you have with them which is built through your writing. So essentially, the relationship is now with AI when AI does the writing. I might as well just take the intro and plot of a book and ask AI to write a book for me based on the same and read that book and skip the first that's for sale. Right?
Not really. Ghostwriting is much more “end-to-end.” That, in my opinion, is truly not-authorship with someone slapping their name on it at the end. I think it’s pretty hard to argue in either my case or Megan McArdle’s case that authorship is in question. It’s not to say that some people’s use of AI doesn’t straight up veer into “ghostwriting”, but the point I’m making here is more that isn’t that different than the normal editorial process with humans in the loop.
What I’d personally characterize what I do (even putting aside this particular article, as said, actually was written from beginning to end just with good ol’ fashioned typing and zero expansion anyway), is similar to having an analyst expand my (quite extensive) outline into prose…
And then largely changing a bunch of things to make the prose my own.
In cases of more… viewpoint based articles, it’s usually a quite extensive revamp. In the case of more “here’s some economic data and what I think,” it’s usually much less extensive. If you look at the fully open process I share in the link where I went through it, you’ll see the draft’s feel/tone pretty radically shifts from my edits. And then I often go and change/shift things multiple times.
Regardless, I think I’m mainly trying to make the point that the tools don’t writing what it is—it’s the decision of what and how you craft the writing.
I think perhaps I should have gotten into “AI slop” in this article (I did when I talked about this topic in my book), but putting aside obviously bad, “close my eyes and just ship what the AI writes” what you decide to ship is what matters. You mention not taking AI’s “better” suggestions to be authentic. I think that means the AI suggestions aren’t better! The entire point to the craft of writing is choosing how to express yourself, regardless of whatever technical finesse there is in it or not.
I never allow something to get posted if it isn’t written in the way I’d write it… which likely means the AI, no matter how much I give it feedback over time, will likely never have a “zero changes” article. Because even if it perfectly emulates me (which it doesn’t), my prose will probably change based on simply mood or feel at the time I write. But that’s all right and is part of what it means to write something.
So essentially you are saying that AI is ghostwriting your articles and you are reviewing them and taking credit for it like everybody else does so it's okay? When I see books supposedly written by famous people that are obviously written by ghostwriters, even if the famous person gives them some information and tells them the topic, I have no respect for the famous person at all. It actually hurts my relationship with them, i.e. their brand. But that's just me.
I've also used AI to see if I can get better quality writing. I write the chapter and have AI review it. I've tried it several times with all four major AIs. It often changes the meaning of what I'm saying and it introduces AI speak. So, even though some of it was more eloquent, I chose to be authentic instead. But that's just me.
I think the basis of people reading the work and following it is the relationship you have with them which is built through your writing. So essentially, the relationship is now with AI when AI does the writing. I might as well just take the intro and plot of a book and ask AI to write a book for me based on the same and read that book and skip the first that's for sale. Right?
Thank you, illuminating and useful post. Such a smart way to leverage ai
Not really. Ghostwriting is much more “end-to-end.” That, in my opinion, is truly not-authorship with someone slapping their name on it at the end. I think it’s pretty hard to argue in either my case or Megan McArdle’s case that authorship is in question. It’s not to say that some people’s use of AI doesn’t straight up veer into “ghostwriting”, but the point I’m making here is more that isn’t that different than the normal editorial process with humans in the loop.
What I’d personally characterize what I do (even putting aside this particular article, as said, actually was written from beginning to end just with good ol’ fashioned typing and zero expansion anyway), is similar to having an analyst expand my (quite extensive) outline into prose…
And then largely changing a bunch of things to make the prose my own.
In cases of more… viewpoint based articles, it’s usually a quite extensive revamp. In the case of more “here’s some economic data and what I think,” it’s usually much less extensive. If you look at the fully open process I share in the link where I went through it, you’ll see the draft’s feel/tone pretty radically shifts from my edits. And then I often go and change/shift things multiple times.
Regardless, I think I’m mainly trying to make the point that the tools don’t writing what it is—it’s the decision of what and how you craft the writing.
I think perhaps I should have gotten into “AI slop” in this article (I did when I talked about this topic in my book), but putting aside obviously bad, “close my eyes and just ship what the AI writes” what you decide to ship is what matters. You mention not taking AI’s “better” suggestions to be authentic. I think that means the AI suggestions aren’t better! The entire point to the craft of writing is choosing how to express yourself, regardless of whatever technical finesse there is in it or not.
I never allow something to get posted if it isn’t written in the way I’d write it… which likely means the AI, no matter how much I give it feedback over time, will likely never have a “zero changes” article. Because even if it perfectly emulates me (which it doesn’t), my prose will probably change based on simply mood or feel at the time I write. But that’s all right and is part of what it means to write something.