In the last few weeks, I have been tinkering with GenAI tools, particularly ChatGPT and Perplexity. It’s been a revelation!
Writers who think GenAI is a storm on the margins are in for a rude shock. GenAI is now mainstream. It’s on the discussion table of most business leaders and entrepreneurs.
And, GenAI is coming for us all. Not next year. Not next month. It’s here already. In a recent post, I grimly noted how GenAI seems to have depressed the demand for human writers.
In this newsletter, I’ll briefly share my experiences on how GenAI is changing the writing function. And its implications on the future of writers.
How has GenAI changed the content game?
Writer’s block
Remember those days when you stared at a white screen without anything to show for? When you struggled to show project progress to stakeholders for days on end?
GenAI can churn 100s of pages in a matter of minutes. It can promptly populate an asset-type with passable content.
To most businesses, this is good enough.
Most business leaders are hard-pressed on time. At a time they expect writers to promptly produce content, they’re faced with (legitimate) questions on context and scope.
With GenAI, you make progress with a few placeholders. This can be iteratively discussed and refined upon.
To most businesses, this delivery speed (a tangible, immediate advantage) is an unambiguous priority over content quality (an uncertain, long-term benefit).
Organizational and individual memory
Writers, no matter how experienced, are prone to make errors due to limitations of their personal memory. Also, their grasp of the organizational memory is constrained by their tenure and access.
Of course, there are systems in place for precisely these situations. Yet, errors persist.
For instance, while writing a Press Release, a writer may miss adhering to the brand guidelines. He may not connect the current news to a very related company development in the past.
With GenAI, you can facilitate mechanical compliance to your brand guidelines every single time. With near-zero chance of human-induced error.
Quality
Writers may harp about the quality of the AI-generated content. But we need to see these developments from the business leaders’ perspective.
Quality-content, definitely, is in the company’s interest.
However, the teams with a stake in content, like content, PR, product, product marketing, sales, etc., are each incentivized to prioritize quantity and speed over quality.
Each team has to showcase progress to the leadership. Sales team would like to impress with the huge number of campaigns they executed. Product marketing teams would be happier with a vast repository of product literature. So on and so forth.
The content team, on the other hand, has to oblige with the tight timelines lest it be seen as an inefficient enterprise. Lest it be made the scapegoat for failures of marketing campaigns.
A good-enough content delivered fast is in the interest of most teams. In contrast, a superior-quality content delivered in its own sweet time is fatal to most teams.
Rote work
Let’s admit this: writers handle rote, mundane and repetitive tasks too.
Sometimes, it involves rewriting existing assets with a focus on a new keyword, guideline or framework. The writer’s equivalent of assembly-line jobs.
GenAI is surprisingly good at these tasks. With good prompt engineering skills, you can re-edit existing content in a thousand different ways.
Ever struggled with rewriting the same social media post with a fresh flavor? With GenAI, this is a child’s play.
Research work
Getting the hook and structure right is often a big task for writers. Even when they’re not using it for content output, many writers already use GenAI for their research work. For creating an outline and must-haves for their writing assignments.
GenAI makes this job easier. With GenAI, it’ll be easy to integrate business intelligence relevant to your assignment.
Ethical consideration
Even as writers are concerned about the ethics in using AI, companies have a valid justification from the operational efficiency standpoint.
When AI tools can create a copious amount of content in minutes that take writers hours or even days, is deliberately opting for the less optimal path in your company’s best interest?
Is this the end of writing?
Let us step back and look at this another way.
- When typewriters were in vogue, the ability to spell complex words was a big asset.
- Expertise in grammar was once a huge advantage.
But as spell-check became the norm in writing software (like MS Word, Google Docs), knowledge of spelling is perhaps only useful at spelling bee contests. With tools like Grammarly, writing grammatically-correct content is no longer a big deal.
But the ease has come with a cost.
Spelling errors are less acceptable than they once were as they now indicate carelessness rather than ignorance. Likewise, excepting complex cases, people don’t see common grammar mistakes as leniently as they once did.
Why?
The baseline expectations of what constitutes decent writing has increased with the introduction of each new technology.
The ability to write content in good-enough English will no longer be a prized skill. So, writers competent at writing and bringing nothing more to the table will be at risk.
“Previously, I had a requirement of 5 writers for my product launch,” remarked an entrepreneur as we were talking about his startup. “Now, I think 2 would suffice.”
Sure, writers will still be needed. But not in the same numbers. There’s an urgent need for writers to upskill with adjacent skills. Perhaps a deep expertise on a subject or tool.
Also, the now popular cliche. AI will not replace you. But someone who knows how to use AI will.
I have always believed that writing is thinking. And, thinkers will be needed. Even in a world of AI. Particularly, in the world of AI.
Musings by Madhav 
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