I keep wondering what role the local and in person will play in this new environment. Will theater see a resurgence? Are there types of in person or more physical jobs that will replace content marketing roles for more creative people? Anecdotally, have noticed that my creative friends are having good luck in things like Waldorf teaching, woodworking, reiki. These are people who are first and foremost artists & writers and who even a year ago were copywriters etc. anyway, mangled thoughts here but wondering what, if anything will fill the vacuum.
I've seen a few luxury brands providing classes like that to their customers, too. Like calligraphy or wine tasting, I don't know if a brand would teach stuff like reiki.
What sticks isn't the economic squeeze. It's Teddy's line that the writing being automated "had very little humanity in it to begin with." Which quietly suggests the machine isn't taking the work so much as revealing which work was already disembodied enough to hand off.
Picking up your thread Katherine, the pivot to Waldorf teaching, woodworking, the in-person work isn't a coincidence. It's the same logic in reverse. What can't be automated is what can't be done from a prompt. Work that requires presence and hands working with physical materials. The squeeze on middle-class creatives might be the market brutally re-sorting work by how much of it required an actual soul to be somewhere. 🌿
The problem with “in person” or on paper is AI can invade those spaces, too. A script can be “written” with AI. A magazine you receive in the mail can be AI. A paper book is in the same danger as an ebook. I think it will come down to trust and perhaps writers documenting their writing process.
I also have my questions when it comes to this, and have no idea what the answer to them may be. Setting aside that there are not enough jobs for everyone moving into already established professional categories (and the situation of the economy.., and what a lot of governments are doing to public funding for the arts — looking at my own..). I host in-person communities with loads of creativity myself, I see the impact they have, but funding is something else. I’m not worried about connection disappearing. I am worried about livelihoods.. Also, creativity can be a lot of things. The field of professional organizing 🔖 may still have demand in busy lives full of changes.
I would describe my face shape as more "furrowed brow" than full grimace while reading this, but in truth, I don't really disagree with much.
I think what we're looking at is a shift from needing what I'd call "writers" to "automation-assisted text producers." The categories of artifacts you discuss lend themselves to automation-assistance in various ways and at various levels. The fact that they're judged on their ultimate utility to the end audience makes it relatively straightforward to judge whether or not the automation is harming the final product.
I would argue that the best automation-assisted text producers are likely to have strong writing practices and so if you want to become one of those people you should still learn to write, but the bigger question is whether or not the people commissioning this work will continue to pay for human involvement.
If I'm a company that's commissioning this stuff, the first question I'm asking is whether or not I actually need this stuff. As you say, it often seems to drop down a hole. I can think of all kinds of artifacts I had to produce in my time in market research and can pretty clearly map what I would need to write, what I could automate almost in total, and where automation-assistance would be useful, but again, that's because I know what writing is.
I think Wiesenthal is overstating the case because I think this tension is just as likely to clarify where human involvement is necessary as it is to erase the occasions where humans remain involved, but there's no doubt that we are in the midst of a shift.
As a full-time writer, this hit home. There are so many things I could utilise AI for (as an assistant to manage my calendar across my 6 different email addresses, for a start) but I feel reluctant to, which is actually negatively impacting the time I can spend doing work. The only thing I use it for currently is transcriptions.
What I’m increasingly realising, after 13 years as a writer (and a decade of that as a freelancer) is that I need to future proof myself and my business in a way that doesn’t actually require writing. Not only because of how shaky the industry is amid decreased print/online budgets (which are compounded by AI taking over the commercial gigs we all relied on), but because I know I cannot simply keep writing stories for freelance rates until the end of time. It’s not possible to build stability for myself if my words on the page/screen are my only method of income. The time spent interviewing and writing versus the remuneration is often loss-making.
Publications hiring (a rarity) or publishers now also look at a writers’ social media reach to determine their worth; journalists now need to do accompanying videos for their titles (NYT, Atlantic, WSJ) for social promotion. It’s not enough to be a good writer any more. We have to be performers and, in a way, a brand.
I'm pretty anti generative AI, but I understand I'm in a minority position within the world at large, even as most of my writer friends share my sentiments. However, there is nothing in me, not even material gain, that compels me to use AI for the kind of content marketing work where most of my income comes from. I had one client require I use AI drafts and editing my first attempt was so painful and time-consuming, I simply wrote the rest on my own. I'm thinking of ways to pivot that have nothing to do with writing because of it. Teaching? Tour guide? I don't know if I care that much anymore. I'll still work on my own creative writing but I guess it's time to completely divorce that endeavor from any sort of money goal (not that it was making me that much money to begin with).
This has kind of been my experience too. Editing AI-output to make it good is honestly more time consuming than just writing the thing, at least most of the time.
But of course, "make it good" is doing some heavy lifting there. As Teddy mentioned, a lot of people don't actually care (or recognize) whether this stuff is good!
Another area with a similar thing happening is for actors, specifically voice actors who made a good part of their living on un-exciting work for educational products, business internal marketing, etc. The AI voice generators are good enough at replicating this and takes about the same amount of time for the editor to put together — at a tiny fraction of the cost.
A lot of the AI training platforms are hiring voice actors, I guess this is why. The companies that are making corporate training videos probably are using AI now.
As a professional translator (technical, commercial, not literary), I can tell you that everything you have said applies to my field too. I started in 1990, was continuously busy through recessions etc. Now it's just crumbs that everyone fights over. AI has become extremely good at translation. A small amount of editing is all that's needed. Why would a client want to pay more?
It's worth considering what has happened when other industries have become automated. Nearly all the furniture we buy is built by machines. This isn't good for quality -- we all know stuff crafted by a talented human is better, and your IKEA stuff will never become family heirlooms -- but it is cheaper! Ultimately, it's hard to beat that at scale, though people and/or businesses with enough money will still buy the good stuff.
I think AI will do the same thing to copywriting. There will always be a place for the higher end copywriters, but everything below that is going to get hollowed out.
I’m in corporate comms and this is dead on the money. And it’s a bummer because I— like many writers—earn my bread and butter with the soulless corporate writing that AI is actually better at than people… That work is definitely going to change, and your line about not knowing whether to mourn it is so relatable.
This feels very close, but why is this type of work being snuffed out? It isn't this tremendous new technology that will improve human life, it is the scourge of capitalism manifesting as a fake need for immediate output. Working class Americans are all on the hamster wheel, but it needs to be stated as often as possible why it is that way. Name your tormentor.
It’s a tough one but worth it. Now anytime i read something about AI I immediately connect it with ideas in Weatherby’s book. Helped me a lot with understanding how generative AI actually works too. I wrote about it here if you’re interested: https://derekneal.substack.com/p/attention-is-all-we-need?r=76737&utm_medium=ios
I was recently in talks with a menswear brand to overhaul their marketing communications, a extensive scope that included an audit of their existing messaging, brand strategy/positioning work, guideline creation, etc. Quote was $20K, which was fair if even a little underpriced. 3-5 years ago I would have likely gotten the green light, instead, I was told they needed to "sort out our budgets and timelines and be back in touch soon" (translation: goodbye!). I'm guessing they'll either hire someone willing to lowball in order to land the work or they'll hand the majority of it over to AI. The cost saving is just too tempting when, as you write, the C-suite are "people who have no interest in the humanity of thought and creativity."
Second, a good friend of mine, who is a very talented graphic designer and therefore whose livelihood is threatened by generative AI in other ways, has essentially turned over all of his writing to LLMs. There are several reasons for that, one being that he finds writing in English difficult due to his ADHD and the fact that it is not his first language, but also because he genuinely doesn't value writing. Whether it's a work email or a NYT article (sorry), it's all just words to him, so why not let AI handle it so he can focus on his forte. I find it horrifying but I agree with your statement that writers overvalue it, and it's likely that a majority of people who aren't professional writers feel similarly to my friend.
Very interesting piece. As someone who used to work in content marketing, I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, AI taking over jobs limits opportunities for writing talent. On the other hand, that job was so dull and inane it felt like a complete waste of whatever talent I had. So is it better to be unemployed and free or employed but resenting your own job? A difficult one.
I enjoyed this piece. For me, the most interesting parts of the discourse around AI are topics like this-- reflections on utilitarian (and often market-driven) forms of writing vs. creative work.
Fortunately as a corporate regulatory medical writer we’re not being pressured to use AI yet because it’s not worth the time to have the FDA metaphorically wup your ass because the program hallucinated something
Is what is happening to writers and musicians all that different to what has been happening to photographers for a decade or so ? Not really. The ease of taking an image and using software to edit and turn it into an at least decent photo has significanlty changed the business of photography. Long gone are the $1000 headshot budgets and (inflation adjuted) $150,000 National Geographic photo projects. The same will now happen to other creative professions. This is not unique to writers, it is just history repeating iself.
Great article. When I was a regular contributor to the NYT - paid $150 a review between 2006-2012 and $200 per review between 2012-2016 - I subsidized my journalism habit with a LOT of copywriting. I did white papers for tech companies, science brochures, retail case studies, e-commerce blogs, you name it. Some of it paid really well.
I keep wondering what role the local and in person will play in this new environment. Will theater see a resurgence? Are there types of in person or more physical jobs that will replace content marketing roles for more creative people? Anecdotally, have noticed that my creative friends are having good luck in things like Waldorf teaching, woodworking, reiki. These are people who are first and foremost artists & writers and who even a year ago were copywriters etc. anyway, mangled thoughts here but wondering what, if anything will fill the vacuum.
I've seen a few luxury brands providing classes like that to their customers, too. Like calligraphy or wine tasting, I don't know if a brand would teach stuff like reiki.
This is something I think about often too--I think we will see a resurgence of live, local, in-person events (theater, live storytelling, etc.)
What sticks isn't the economic squeeze. It's Teddy's line that the writing being automated "had very little humanity in it to begin with." Which quietly suggests the machine isn't taking the work so much as revealing which work was already disembodied enough to hand off.
Picking up your thread Katherine, the pivot to Waldorf teaching, woodworking, the in-person work isn't a coincidence. It's the same logic in reverse. What can't be automated is what can't be done from a prompt. Work that requires presence and hands working with physical materials. The squeeze on middle-class creatives might be the market brutally re-sorting work by how much of it required an actual soul to be somewhere. 🌿
The problem with “in person” or on paper is AI can invade those spaces, too. A script can be “written” with AI. A magazine you receive in the mail can be AI. A paper book is in the same danger as an ebook. I think it will come down to trust and perhaps writers documenting their writing process.
I also have my questions when it comes to this, and have no idea what the answer to them may be. Setting aside that there are not enough jobs for everyone moving into already established professional categories (and the situation of the economy.., and what a lot of governments are doing to public funding for the arts — looking at my own..). I host in-person communities with loads of creativity myself, I see the impact they have, but funding is something else. I’m not worried about connection disappearing. I am worried about livelihoods.. Also, creativity can be a lot of things. The field of professional organizing 🔖 may still have demand in busy lives full of changes.
I would describe my face shape as more "furrowed brow" than full grimace while reading this, but in truth, I don't really disagree with much.
I think what we're looking at is a shift from needing what I'd call "writers" to "automation-assisted text producers." The categories of artifacts you discuss lend themselves to automation-assistance in various ways and at various levels. The fact that they're judged on their ultimate utility to the end audience makes it relatively straightforward to judge whether or not the automation is harming the final product.
I would argue that the best automation-assisted text producers are likely to have strong writing practices and so if you want to become one of those people you should still learn to write, but the bigger question is whether or not the people commissioning this work will continue to pay for human involvement.
Some of this stuff probably is "bullshit writing" which I explored in a deleted chapter from the book that I published here (https://biblioracle.substack.com/p/bullsht-writing?utm_source=publication-search).
If I'm a company that's commissioning this stuff, the first question I'm asking is whether or not I actually need this stuff. As you say, it often seems to drop down a hole. I can think of all kinds of artifacts I had to produce in my time in market research and can pretty clearly map what I would need to write, what I could automate almost in total, and where automation-assistance would be useful, but again, that's because I know what writing is.
I think Wiesenthal is overstating the case because I think this tension is just as likely to clarify where human involvement is necessary as it is to erase the occasions where humans remain involved, but there's no doubt that we are in the midst of a shift.
An unsurprisingly wise and nuanced response, thank you John!
As a full-time writer, this hit home. There are so many things I could utilise AI for (as an assistant to manage my calendar across my 6 different email addresses, for a start) but I feel reluctant to, which is actually negatively impacting the time I can spend doing work. The only thing I use it for currently is transcriptions.
What I’m increasingly realising, after 13 years as a writer (and a decade of that as a freelancer) is that I need to future proof myself and my business in a way that doesn’t actually require writing. Not only because of how shaky the industry is amid decreased print/online budgets (which are compounded by AI taking over the commercial gigs we all relied on), but because I know I cannot simply keep writing stories for freelance rates until the end of time. It’s not possible to build stability for myself if my words on the page/screen are my only method of income. The time spent interviewing and writing versus the remuneration is often loss-making.
Publications hiring (a rarity) or publishers now also look at a writers’ social media reach to determine their worth; journalists now need to do accompanying videos for their titles (NYT, Atlantic, WSJ) for social promotion. It’s not enough to be a good writer any more. We have to be performers and, in a way, a brand.
I'm pretty anti generative AI, but I understand I'm in a minority position within the world at large, even as most of my writer friends share my sentiments. However, there is nothing in me, not even material gain, that compels me to use AI for the kind of content marketing work where most of my income comes from. I had one client require I use AI drafts and editing my first attempt was so painful and time-consuming, I simply wrote the rest on my own. I'm thinking of ways to pivot that have nothing to do with writing because of it. Teaching? Tour guide? I don't know if I care that much anymore. I'll still work on my own creative writing but I guess it's time to completely divorce that endeavor from any sort of money goal (not that it was making me that much money to begin with).
This has kind of been my experience too. Editing AI-output to make it good is honestly more time consuming than just writing the thing, at least most of the time.
But of course, "make it good" is doing some heavy lifting there. As Teddy mentioned, a lot of people don't actually care (or recognize) whether this stuff is good!
I was in the same boat. Spent years as a copywriter. Was fun while it lasted but I'm just going into sales.
Another area with a similar thing happening is for actors, specifically voice actors who made a good part of their living on un-exciting work for educational products, business internal marketing, etc. The AI voice generators are good enough at replicating this and takes about the same amount of time for the editor to put together — at a tiny fraction of the cost.
Yeah the unglamorous but stable ends of the creative industries are getting crushed into dust, it’s awful.
A lot of the AI training platforms are hiring voice actors, I guess this is why. The companies that are making corporate training videos probably are using AI now.
As a professional translator (technical, commercial, not literary), I can tell you that everything you have said applies to my field too. I started in 1990, was continuously busy through recessions etc. Now it's just crumbs that everyone fights over. AI has become extremely good at translation. A small amount of editing is all that's needed. Why would a client want to pay more?
It's worth considering what has happened when other industries have become automated. Nearly all the furniture we buy is built by machines. This isn't good for quality -- we all know stuff crafted by a talented human is better, and your IKEA stuff will never become family heirlooms -- but it is cheaper! Ultimately, it's hard to beat that at scale, though people and/or businesses with enough money will still buy the good stuff.
I think AI will do the same thing to copywriting. There will always be a place for the higher end copywriters, but everything below that is going to get hollowed out.
Yeah I think that’s certainly the outcome we’re heading towards now.
I’m in corporate comms and this is dead on the money. And it’s a bummer because I— like many writers—earn my bread and butter with the soulless corporate writing that AI is actually better at than people… That work is definitely going to change, and your line about not knowing whether to mourn it is so relatable.
This feels very close, but why is this type of work being snuffed out? It isn't this tremendous new technology that will improve human life, it is the scourge of capitalism manifesting as a fake need for immediate output. Working class Americans are all on the hamster wheel, but it needs to be stated as often as possible why it is that way. Name your tormentor.
This is what Leif Weatherby calls “language as a service” in his book “Language Machines.” Highly recommend it
That book has been sitting on my shelf for a while and I need to read it!
It’s a tough one but worth it. Now anytime i read something about AI I immediately connect it with ideas in Weatherby’s book. Helped me a lot with understanding how generative AI actually works too. I wrote about it here if you’re interested: https://derekneal.substack.com/p/attention-is-all-we-need?r=76737&utm_medium=ios
Couple things...
I was recently in talks with a menswear brand to overhaul their marketing communications, a extensive scope that included an audit of their existing messaging, brand strategy/positioning work, guideline creation, etc. Quote was $20K, which was fair if even a little underpriced. 3-5 years ago I would have likely gotten the green light, instead, I was told they needed to "sort out our budgets and timelines and be back in touch soon" (translation: goodbye!). I'm guessing they'll either hire someone willing to lowball in order to land the work or they'll hand the majority of it over to AI. The cost saving is just too tempting when, as you write, the C-suite are "people who have no interest in the humanity of thought and creativity."
Second, a good friend of mine, who is a very talented graphic designer and therefore whose livelihood is threatened by generative AI in other ways, has essentially turned over all of his writing to LLMs. There are several reasons for that, one being that he finds writing in English difficult due to his ADHD and the fact that it is not his first language, but also because he genuinely doesn't value writing. Whether it's a work email or a NYT article (sorry), it's all just words to him, so why not let AI handle it so he can focus on his forte. I find it horrifying but I agree with your statement that writers overvalue it, and it's likely that a majority of people who aren't professional writers feel similarly to my friend.
Very interesting piece. As someone who used to work in content marketing, I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, AI taking over jobs limits opportunities for writing talent. On the other hand, that job was so dull and inane it felt like a complete waste of whatever talent I had. So is it better to be unemployed and free or employed but resenting your own job? A difficult one.
I enjoyed this piece. For me, the most interesting parts of the discourse around AI are topics like this-- reflections on utilitarian (and often market-driven) forms of writing vs. creative work.
Fortunately as a corporate regulatory medical writer we’re not being pressured to use AI yet because it’s not worth the time to have the FDA metaphorically wup your ass because the program hallucinated something
Is what is happening to writers and musicians all that different to what has been happening to photographers for a decade or so ? Not really. The ease of taking an image and using software to edit and turn it into an at least decent photo has significanlty changed the business of photography. Long gone are the $1000 headshot budgets and (inflation adjuted) $150,000 National Geographic photo projects. The same will now happen to other creative professions. This is not unique to writers, it is just history repeating iself.
Great article. When I was a regular contributor to the NYT - paid $150 a review between 2006-2012 and $200 per review between 2012-2016 - I subsidized my journalism habit with a LOT of copywriting. I did white papers for tech companies, science brochures, retail case studies, e-commerce blogs, you name it. Some of it paid really well.