Writer to Writer: A Dire Warning About AI

As a writer, editor, author and content marketer who has employed dozens of freelance writers for more than 10 years, I’ve been unsurprised but disappointed to see many of my colleagues gleefully and thoughtlessly pry open the Pandora’s box of artificial intelligence writing tools.

AI is to white collar workers what mechanical automation was to blue collar workers. When factory employees lost their jobs to the automatic assembly line, there weren’t any new jobs waiting for them, nor was there sufficient government assistance or training programs. AI may be inevitable, but we shouldn’t accelerate our demise by embracing the tools and rationalizing their consequences.

Here are some summaries of problematic attitudes I’ve seen on LinkedIn during the past few years. These aren’t real quotes. I’m not trying to call out specific people.

• ‘ChatGPT is saving me so much time on my writing and research! It’s OK that a robot is doing most of my writing for me because I still edit the drafts and double check the research.’
• ‘I only use ChatGPT to write my SEO articles. I still write other types of articles myself.’
• ‘To compete, we have to use AI tools in as many parts of our writing, editing and content jobs as possible. If you’re not using this stack of AI tools, you’re behind the times.’

If you’re a writer who has expressed or heard similar opinions, please read this article. I explain how reckless adoption of AI writing and editing tools nurtures a beast that will eventually take a bite out of us all.

To my colleagues who build and manage AI tools, I’m not necessarily blaming you personally. AI is not the root problem. We live in a late capitalist society that is not on track to obtaining a federal jobs guarantee, universal health care, updated minimum wage or reasonable wealth and corporate taxes. If we had these policies, AI would not be an immediate threat to millions of Americans.

Here are my warnings. Ignore them at your own risk.

AI Only Helps One Group of People, and It’s Not You

The owners of AI companies are the only people in the world guaranteed to benefit from the increasing adoption of the technology. Like every other aspect of capitalism, you’re unlikely to benefit from a boom if you don’t own a share of it. Most owners are not going to share their newfound wealth with employees, especially writers who are viewed as disposable.

Once People Figure Out You’re Using AI Tools to Write and Edit, They’ll Pay You Less or Ask For More

During my 10+ years as a managing editor, a significant part of my job has been negotiating rates with freelance writers. I have enough experience to tell how much time and effort someone has put into a draft.

I pride myself on being generous. I have paid writers very high rates when they have consistently impressed me and demonstrated value.

If I saw a subpar draft and found out the writer was relying on AI tools to save hours of time, while charging the same rate, I would consider ending our professional relationship. At the least I would ask them to either stop using AI tools or take a lower rate.

I don’t accept the idea that SEO articles should be an exception. Well-written SEO articles should have all the thoughtfulness and journalistic qualities of investigative and opinion pieces. Adding these elements can help the articles rank by making them more shareable and easier to build links for. My colleagues and I are going to write plenty of SEO articles on The Rauch Review, and we will not be including AI tools in the writing process.

I have spoken with many editors who feel similarly. If you’re a writer who is evangelizing AI tools, you’re taking a gamble that you won’t wind up with an editor like me. If you take that gamble and lose, your reputation could become tarnished.

Sure, you could be transparent and announce ahead of time that your writing will be AI-generated and human-edited. I would appreciate the honesty. Then I would decline to work with you or offer you a lower rate.

What About Full-Time Staff or Contract Writers?

For full-time writers, I don’t know if your boss will dock your pay for using AI, but they will ask you to crank out an even higher volume of content. Many full-time writers are already pressured into producing up to 20 stories a week. I can easily see a boss using AI as a justification to demand double.

If You Don’t Write, Are You a Writer?

It’s a stupidly simple question, but I haven’t seen anyone candidly ask themselves this on LinkedIn. If an AI does the vast majority of your actual writing for you, are you still a writer? Aren’t you an AI’s editor? If you think the AI can produce something comparable to your authentic writing, why write at all?

I’ve seen people rationalize this conundrum by claiming that editing their AI’s work will keep their writing skills intact. It’s true that editing can help you retain a bit of writing skill, even when you don’t write for long periods of time. But editing doesn’t help nearly as much as actual writing. When I have been at my peak performance as an editor, it’s because I was writing consistently, and I’ve seen the same situation with my peers.

I thought we became writers because we love writing. I hope I’m right.

For those who value efficiency and money more than creating, there are much more lucrative careers than writing. Want to make bank by editing all day long? Try working in the legal world. It’s OK for writing to be a hobby.

AI Will Widen Class Divides Between Writers

Like all professions, there are different social and economic classes of writers. Here’s my perception of how these tiers were before the advent of AI writing tools:

Tier 1: Celebrity Mainstream Media and Independent Media Writers/Authors With Big Followings

Because people follow these writers for their idiosyncratic musings, AI cannot replace them. They often don’t need day jobs.

Tier 2: In-House and Freelance Writers/Editors for Media Outlets and Brands

This is the tier I’ve been in for a while as part of my day job career. I’m trying to move up into Tier 1.

I think AI will impact a lot of people in this tier. Most of these people can write better than AI, but many employers don’t care about sourcing the best content.

Editors and content marketing people like myself have a better chance of surviving, but we are being replaced, too. AI can spit out mediocre content strategies, and that value is enough for some employers.

Tier 3: Low-Experience or Low-Skill Writers Who Are Often ESL

I know these people because several of my employers have forced me into situations where I had to hire them for dirt cheap on Upwork. One of my post-lockdown bosses wanted me to quickly manage the production of 100 articles at an average cost of $50 an article. I told him the quality would have to be low, and he said that was fine. He helped me find people on Upwork and across the web who would work for as low as $5 an hour.

During the process, I was horribly conflicted. It wasn’t my way. I didn’t want to do it. I felt like I was exploiting desperate workers, most of whom spoke English as a second language (ESL) and were difficult to communicate with. My editing work increased exponentially.

On the other hand, I was helping the most desperate class of writers put food on the table. Every time we corresponded, they expressed gratitude and asked for more work.

Based on my experience, AI can write about as well — sometimes better — than many of these low-skill workers. I’m not trying to put them down. It’s not their fault. I’m only illustrating a sad, painful truth.

I predict that AI will nearly wipe out this class of writers. If employers can get the same results from an AI tool and then dump the editing work onto a full-time person who is happy to have a job at all, why would they pay hundreds of dollars a month for ESL writers? Surely there are AI writing product subscriptions that are cheaper.

Driven further into desperation, I’m not sure what the low-skill ESL workers will do. I think many try writing so they can diversify their income streams. There are only so many low-wage jobs they can compete for at one time. Not everyone can buy a car and get in the rideshare game, or buy a bike and be a delivery person. With writing, the only expense is an internet connection. Writing is also a crucial income source for people with disabilities that prevent them from working physical labor gigs.

Have We Learned Nothing from All the Cautionary Novels, Films and Shows About AI?

When it comes to this issue, I’m harder on writers because we tend to digest more stories than non-writers. Here are some fiction and nonfiction books that warn of reckless advancements in AI technology:

• “The Robot Series” by Isaac Asimov
• “Robopocalypse” by Daniel H. Wilson
• “Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control” by Stuart Russel (an AI researcher)
• “Fool’s War” by Sarah Zettel
• “Machinations” by Hayley Stone

Why are we risking this possible future? Why aren’t we doing everything possible to prevent it?

What Can We Do?

Here are the steps I’m taking:

• Writing content like this
• Not using AI tools that replace jobs and freelance labor
• Discouraging my freelance writers from using AI tools, insisting I pay them fair wages for content they wrote themselves
• Not using any AI tools myself for writing, editing or research

I hope you’ll join me.