Skills Writers Need in the AI Era

Tags

AI, ChatGPT

With all the recent hullabaloo about AI and its use for purposes such as the KENP scam and to create massive numbers of AI-generated books, one may wonder if writing is about to become obsolete. And yet, I use AI daily for a number of tasks, from researching and creating web content to spellchecking and maximizing the SEO impact of my copy. AI has boosted my productivity and opened up new avenues for my writing.

I recently came across an interesting article on Forbes by Justin Belmont that listed some crucial areas where AI can help us, along with some ways in which it can’t. Justin rightly emphasized that writers can make themselves essential by honing the skills that AI models struggle with. Then it won’t be a matter of AI replacing anyone—instead, AI and humans will work together to create better content more efficiently.

Here are some areas AI may struggle with — but most humans won’t:

Fact-Checking

Typically, when AI models produce text, they rely on extensive training data to guess the subsequent word. This lets them compose extensive pieces of writing. However, they don’t really understand what they’re saying. As a result, the presence of incorrect information in the training data can lead these models to so-called hallucinations, i.e. asserting inaccuracies with confidence. In addition, using AI to create text about recent events may be particularly hard, given that ChatGPT’s knowledge is limited to information up to September 2021.

A human should thus fact-check AI-generated content with information gathered manually from reliable sources.

Conveying Specialized, Industry-Specific Knowledge

AI is an impressive generalist with a solid base of knowledge across many domains. However, such models often find it hard to write about the intricacies of specific workplaces and fields of research.  This is best handled by writers with specialized, industry-specific knowledge. If you’re an expert in your field, this works in your favor as no AI can replace you.

Emphasizing Quality Over Quantity

A few months ago, I was approached by a company that uses AI to create content at scale. Most of it was well-written but still needed some editing, as it was repetitive and obviously AI-written once you knew what to look for. With the rise of AI, this trend is bound to grow. 

However, much of the barrage of content unleashed by AI will be low-value and disposable. That’s why this is the perfect time for content teams — and writers at the individual level — to focus on crafting original, well-researched work that can stand out in a sea of quickly generated AI-assisted content. 

Adding Personal Color And Emotion

Writing that comes from the soul resonates and stays with the reader. Whether you’re looking for an eye-catching opening or an engaging throughline, it always helps to connect with your readers on a personal level. Personal anecdotes add depth and emotional texture to even the most standard pieces.

Since AI models have no personal experiences of life, they can’t write these more human-centric moments that set a work of writing apart. No, you don’t have to bare your soul. But adding some personal color to a piece will enhance it in a way that a Large Language Model (LLM) never could.

Strengthening Sentence-Level Originality

When I first used ChatGPT, I was shocked by its ability to generate paragraph after paragraph on any given topic in mere seconds. The more I used it, though, the blander most generated copy read. Simply put, its prose lacks interesting turns of phrase. I once even experimented by asking it to paraphrase one particularly well-written piece of mine. Everything that made my piece shine was missing in the rewritten copy, which had turned into a rather boring post.

The best way to improve your ability to form original sentences? Read. Read the classics, read good new fiction, read literary magazines, and read poetry. See the many different ways writers have arranged sentences through time and understand the thought processes behind them. 

Use AI Effectively

While it might sound a bit counterintuitive, the writers who are poised to win during the AI boom are the ones who learn how to effectively use AI models. ChatGPT, Claude, and other models are excellent researchers, brainstormers, and outliners. Learn how to use them to improve your own writing and help you work more efficiently. Place AI side by side with other technologies that have made the craft of writing easier over the years, like the thesaurus, the printing press, word processors, Grammarly, and Google Search.

So, if you’re worried about the rise of AI and its potential decimation of writing as a profession, don’t be. There’s too much that humans can do that AI can’t. As Einstein would have said about AI (well, according to a famous ChatGPT prompt), generative AI is a powerful tool for human creativity and discovery. But it is not a substitute for human intelligence and wisdom. It is a partner, not a master.

By understanding AI and its potential to help you as a writer, you won’t just survive the AI transformation — you’ll be poised to thrive!