Do I Still Know How To Write Stuff Without AI?

AI has, and is, changing how content is created. The area this has had arguably one of the biggest impacts is on copy writing. It wouldn't be a stretch to say most copy written on the internet this month will either be assisted or fully written by AI. I admit I utilize it daily in my business and with clients I work with. And in so many ways it has been a game changer. It has made researching and drafting content exponentially faster. I am a big proponent of using it in a way to assist your ideas. 

Ok so why am I saying all of that? Writing that to be more specific. Because I honestly asked myself the question the other day,

do I still know how to write? 

As an elder millennial, one that turned forty a week ago, I grew up during the emergence of the internet, and then spent a decade working with teenagers as mobile phones and social media took hold. One thing that I learnt during those times is that technology more often then not steals that which it promises to give. The mobile phone promised freedom and connection, social media promised friendship and community. While it is not that those things dont ever happen thanks to technology, it is that we now know it has mostly been the opposite.

Now we come to Artificial Intelligence, the biggest technological shift our planet has witnessed. Something that I dont think is lost on any of you reading this.

Writing using AI may be seen as a minor thing, but I think it gives us a great example and opportunity to put into practice what we have learnt from previous shifts. AI is promising us better writing; better grammar, better sources and research, faster and more efficient. Definitely the dream, especially if you don't enjoy writing. And I am not arguing that those things are not true. They are some of the reasons I use them. As humans we love easy. We love automation, I mean isn't passive income the ultimate goal, ha. But I believe while that is nice, it is not best. Social media gave us easy friendships, though they aren't really friendships, well not the kind we were created for anyways. The best things in life take hard work, they are the most rewarding, and most fruitful, they are the things that bring me the most joy. Like going to the gym, I cant automate my health, getting stronger is not easy. So back to writing. Writing is hard, well good writing anyways. It is a skill that takes developing, like any muscle, any creative muscle.

I believe we are made to create, it is one of the things that makes us human.

So the danger of outsourcing our creativity is that we stop building that muscle. In the same way many kids stopped building their creative muscles during school because they were told they were not "creative". But we are all creative, we just need to actually work at it, and when we do we get better and better at it, and with that comes more and more fulfillment and joy. Because we are being human.

I did not really intend this post to go where it has gone. But I just couldn't get the question out of my head.

Do I still know how to write?

Am I working my writing muscle? Am I doing the hard work it takes to really be creative?

So I wrote this whole post without any assistance. It took me longer than any post I have written this year. It is rougher, has grammatical errors. You also may disagree with the content, the opinions written, that's ok. I really more then anything wanted to work on my writing. Something I believe will only make me a better writer when I go to use AI. Which I will.

Also thanks so much for reading this. If you made it to the end you gave me some of your really valuable time, and I so appreciate that. I hope to write more like this. More like I used to when I started this website over 20 years ago.