In a ChatGPT world are writers necessary?

I keep thinking about that book "Are Men Necessary" by Maureen Dowd ... a funny, attention-grabbing title about gender politics. But what if we replace "men" with "writer." Are writers necessary in our post-AI, generative text world? It's something I never thought I'd have to think about. When my designer friends were losing work to India or Squarespace about 10 years ago, I would think (a little too smugly) "That will NEVER happen with writing."

But here we are. If you read this newsletter, you know that we writers are having ... a moment. As a professional copywriter and speechwriter for more than 20 years, the massive power of generative text has forced me to stop and think: Does the process of writing still matter, if a machine can do it faster -- and let's be honest, in a lot of cases -- better than the average person?

Am I necessary.

Here is what I have learned from my own experiences using ChatGPT and seeing my speechwriting clients use it for their own talks:

GO AHEAD AND USE IT

For "just the facts ma'am" writing projects.

It's very good at synthesizing and organizing data and short sections of fact-based writing into a logical format that flows well. I particularly like it for proposals. It's also okay at articles like, "How to winterize your home in 5 steps," just be sure you -- or a writer you trust -- can go in and make sure a.) it makes sense (AI still hallucinates) and b.) it has at least a little life to it.

To get the most obvious ideas out of the way.

A few months ago, I had to write some headlines for a bank in Cape Cod. The client wanted to use humor so I asked ChatGPT to give me some headlines connecting banking and the beach. 9 out of 10 of them were boring and obvious. But that 10th idea helped lead me into much more interesting territory.

USE IT WITH CAUTION

For brainstorming

A lot of people tell me that they use ChatGPT for brainstorming. Okay. But here is my caveat. Be sure you are not taking YOUR brain out of the brainstorming. Sure, let it help you come up with some ideas, but then close it. Think about those ideas. Come up with more of your own. Do it again. Turn it off again. It is generating ideas that are already out there. Your brain is what generates new ideas. Don't undervalue that.

To help find structure in a very messy draft

Now I love finding structure in a mess. It's one of my very favorite things to do as a writer so it makes me a little sad to admit that ChatGPT is pretty good at this, too. So if you have spent a lot of time writing and just can't seem to find your through-line or structure to hang all your beautiful words on, see what ChatGPT thinks. Again, it will find you the most used, the most obvious structure. And that might help get you unstuck, but just remember that ultimately you get to decide what works and there might be a better, more original way to structure your thoughts.

DO NOT USE IT

To come up with your big idea

I like a rule that Terry Szuplat -- a former Obama speechwriter -- uses in his fantastic book, "Say It Well" which goes like this: When you are working on a talk, spend 50% of your time thinking about what you want to say, 25% of your time writing it and 25% editing. What happens is that when you go right to ChatGPT, you are depriving yourself of that rich, thinking time. That deep thinking you need to do to find your original idea-- the talk (or story) that only you can tell. That time is even better spent talking about your ideas with another person. What questions do they ask? Where do they lean in and say, "Oh that's interesting, tell me more?" Literally writing down your ideas is very productive in finding out what you actually think. See where it leads you. ChatGPT will lead you to other people's ideas. You want to find your OWN idea.

To choose your words

I have a client who is in a TED writing group I run. English is not her first language, and I just love listening to her share her stories. She often struggles to find that right word or phrase, and comes up with the most interesting, unique ways of sharing what she means. Two meetings ago, she came to our session with a pretty solid structure for her talk. She told me she used ChatGPT to help her. And that was fine. It was a pretty good structure. But it was not the talk. It was a skeleton. There was a scene where a developmentally disabled man punches her. And that's what ChatGPT wrote. "Tom punched me. I woke up on the ground." It took all the terror and energy out of that moment. "What do you remember about Tom punching you?" I asked her. "Well," she thought, "I remember there were these tall pine trees near his house. I was looking at them before he hit me. I remember watching them go from vertical to horizontal as I fell." "Yes," I said. "Write THAT!"

Final thoughts

We all have a unique way of speaking. ChatGPT -- yes, even the more human version -- makes us sound the same. It also makes me much less interested in reading something if I know there was not a human behind the story. I feel the same way about AI generated art and music. I think as humans, we can sense when a piece of writing was not written by another human. That we are entering "uncanny valley" territory. It's almost right, but not quite. Something is off.

So, am I still necessary? Well, I think the nature of my work is shifting. I doubt I will be writing many "How to winterize your home in 5 steps" type blogs, but I think -- I hope -- that I will be doing more exciting work: Helping push people to find the talk or story that is truly unique, something only they can say, then helping them find the words that are true to their unique voice.

And yes, I am going to use ChatGPT to proof this before I hit PUBLISH. (Pro tip: Ask, "Please proof this, but don't rewrite. Just tell me what you changed.")