Earlier today, The Verge published a comparison of the three most popular AI chatbots at the current moment: ChatGPT, Microsoft Bing, and Google Bard.
The article outlines the strengths and weaknesses of these chatbots, and the overall summary is that “ChatGPT is the most verbally dextrous, Bing is best for getting information from the web, and Bard is... doing its best.” [1]
I’ve played around with these tools quite a bit, and it inevitably forces every writer to ask themselves: if an AI chat tool can write something for me, then why should I continue writing?
The answer will be different for every writer. For some, writing may be a creative outlet, something that allows them to escape from reality for a short while. For others, it may be a way to structure one’s thoughts or feelings.
Yet the element that I find to be most helpful, as outlined in this essay from Farnam Street, is that “writing is the process by which you realize that you do not understand what you are talking about. Importantly, writing is also the process by which you figure it out.” [2]
In simpler terms, it’s one way to think and learn.
When you start to think about writing as a way to learn, it shifts your perspective on the purpose of the activity. You approach it with curiosity, like a puzzle that needs solving, as opposed to a predetermined outcome waiting to be plucked out of the ether. Most often, you put pen to paper to do the work; you don’t do the work and then put pen to paper.
In his essay on How to Write Usefully, Paul Graham outlines four qualities that useful writing must have:
Artificial intelligence doesn’t do any of these things perfectly yet, which is outlined in the examples provided by The Verge article. In one instance, they asked each of the three AI chatbots for the average salary of a plumber in NYC. The information provided by the three chatbots was either generic, broad, or flat out incorrect. Granted, essay writing or creative writing is a lot different than asking for a specific answer to a specific question, but the AI chatbots still have quite a way to go before they will check off Graham’s four qualities of useful writing.
The Farnam Street essay outlines: “Writing requires the compression of an idea. When done poorly, compression removes insights. When done well, compression keeps the insights and removes the rest.” [3] Our uniquely human minds are able to decide what is correct, novel, important, and strong, which then allows us to discard everything that isn’t.
And even if AI is eventually able to do these things perfectly, which it probably will be, there’s still room for human weirdness. Because if everyone is using AI to do their writing for them, then there will be a lot of “filler” writing. With AI, it will be easy to write a lot while saying very little.
The writing that is weird will breach the surface because it will retain the element of novelty. Farnam Street aptly explains, “A world of common thinking available on demand will tempt people to outsource their thinking and disproportionately reward people who don’t. In the future, clear thinking will become more valuable, not less.” [4]
And ultimately, there are still so many things left to write about. As Graham puts it, “if most essays are still unwritten, most such ideas are still undiscovered.” [5]
That alone makes it worth the effort.
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Earlier today, The Verge published a comparison of the three most popular AI chatbots at the current moment: ChatGPT, Microsoft Bing, and Google Bard.
The article outlines the strengths and weaknesses of these chatbots, and the overall summary is that “ChatGPT is the most verbally dextrous, Bing is best for getting information from the web, and Bard is... doing its best.” [1]
I’ve played around with these tools quite a bit, and it inevitably forces every writer to ask themselves: if an AI chat tool can write something for me, then why should I continue writing?
The answer will be different for every writer. For some, writing may be a creative outlet, something that allows them to escape from reality for a short while. For others, it may be a way to structure one’s thoughts or feelings.
Yet the element that I find to be most helpful, as outlined in this essay from Farnam Street, is that “writing is the process by which you realize that you do not understand what you are talking about. Importantly, writing is also the process by which you figure it out.” [2]
In simpler terms, it’s one way to think and learn.
When you start to think about writing as a way to learn, it shifts your perspective on the purpose of the activity. You approach it with curiosity, like a puzzle that needs solving, as opposed to a predetermined outcome waiting to be plucked out of the ether. Most often, you put pen to paper to do the work; you don’t do the work and then put pen to paper.
In his essay on How to Write Usefully, Paul Graham outlines four qualities that useful writing must have:
Artificial intelligence doesn’t do any of these things perfectly yet, which is outlined in the examples provided by The Verge article. In one instance, they asked each of the three AI chatbots for the average salary of a plumber in NYC. The information provided by the three chatbots was either generic, broad, or flat out incorrect. Granted, essay writing or creative writing is a lot different than asking for a specific answer to a specific question, but the AI chatbots still have quite a way to go before they will check off Graham’s four qualities of useful writing.
The Farnam Street essay outlines: “Writing requires the compression of an idea. When done poorly, compression removes insights. When done well, compression keeps the insights and removes the rest.” [3] Our uniquely human minds are able to decide what is correct, novel, important, and strong, which then allows us to discard everything that isn’t.
And even if AI is eventually able to do these things perfectly, which it probably will be, there’s still room for human weirdness. Because if everyone is using AI to do their writing for them, then there will be a lot of “filler” writing. With AI, it will be easy to write a lot while saying very little.
The writing that is weird will breach the surface because it will retain the element of novelty. Farnam Street aptly explains, “A world of common thinking available on demand will tempt people to outsource their thinking and disproportionately reward people who don’t. In the future, clear thinking will become more valuable, not less.” [4]
And ultimately, there are still so many things left to write about. As Graham puts it, “if most essays are still unwritten, most such ideas are still undiscovered.” [5]
That alone makes it worth the effort.
