With more LLM-generated text floating around, and this thoughtful post about dealing with people’s AI-‘writing’ output, I’m noticing something about the point of writing.
I assume anyone writing something for me to consume has a perspective they want to share. The writing isn’t inherently valuable in of itself. It’s the thought behind it that matters.
It’s not that that quality of writing doesn’t matter — it’s critical, but the writing a means to an end. I don’t need “an email”. I need someone to understand that the ideas I have about their project. I don’t need “a proposal”, I need to help someone understand why they might want to hire my company for their project.
Writing is a shadow of thought. The better the writing, the more clearly the shadow represents the shape of the original thought. Even the best writing can never perfectly capture the original thought. Writing is one of the best tools we have to share thoughts across space and time.
LLMs are good at creating the artifact. They’ll give you “an email” or “a proposal”. If I’m generous, they may even help you work through your idea. I’m not convinced they are helpful in helping me understand your idea.
I’m curious to check back in on my own thinking here are as the tools and our expectations evolve over the next few years.
This is well said! Writing can also be the chisel that helps form the thought. An idea might start out misshapen, and you can only notice that once you’ve written it down. LLMs don’t encourage the kind of hard work it takes to turn a thought into words for others (although they _can_ be used to help with this).