Are You Optimizing Your Writing for Productivity or Suffering?
Writing with AI demands a new form of decision intelligence.
Writers often think of ourselves as guardians of an ancient art form. That sets an easy trap for thinking the Old Ways were pure and true, that an author scribbling out their thoughts on parchment under candlelight is performing writing as it ought to be. The new, cursed writing machines — ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and others — are destroying humanity’s ability to write, think, and create. Aren’t they?
The reverse is true. Used effectively, AI improves our thinking and is a once-in-a-generation catalyst for creatives.
Instead of lamenting the “ease” with which one can write without the character-building exercise of overcoming writer’s block, we should embrace a new form of decision intelligence that can help with creativity by sharpening our thinking, getting us unstuck, and being a new trigger to get things done.
Suffering for suffering’s sake
The real culprit is our society’s deep insistence that struggle equals value. From hustle culture to athletic performance, we’re consumed with the idea that greatness comes from pushing through the pain.
I’m unconvinced that writers must walk the Via Dolorosa to produce great writing. But what creates a visceral reaction among so many is the idea that AI should do any writing at all—see the oft-referenced “AI slop.”
Yes, AI can produce some pretty drab prose. However, nixing it entirely from the writing process is too short-sighted and doesn’t match the trajectory of technology.
When a process becomes “easier” (which I don’t even think is the correct way to frame AI, but using it for the sake of argument), it somehow becomes less justified. It became “easier” to compose an essay by referencing sources from the Internet instead of slogging to the university library. Same for ensuring your writing was typo-free and grammatically correct with the advent of spellcheck within Word, Google Docs, and services like Grammarly.
Was something lost? Perhaps. We may no longer diagram sentences or have innate knowledge of as many grammar rules. Getting a draft from an LLM can be tempting when needing to crank out a blog post on a less-than-inspiring topic.
But this ignores the upside. Never before have you been able to float ideas, strategize, or get feedback 24/7 from a resource that never gets tired. And that dreaded “AI slop” can be edited. Yes, the essence of being a writer is still there, even if some of the modes of the work have changed.
We’re seeing a similar pattern to past technology waves — early versions have hiccups, critics predict doom and the fall of civilization, and later, the tool becomes indispensable. I worry that we’re engaged in projection based on how badly social media has burned our society, or the predictions of mass job loss. Instead, we must squarely confront the reality of AI and grasp the unique strengths it does offer to the writer.
The writer’s opportunity
Writing and the larger creative arts will require a new form of decision intelligence over how and when to use AI. Good writers can use AI to improve their thought process, challenge their ideas, and get that “gut check” that sharpens writing and thinking.
Every new writing medium and technological innovation changes the craft. The shift from the pen to the typewriter and computer represented a recalibration of what it meant to write. Each innovation altered how quickly writers could scale daily output and revise drafts. Successive software innovations, from basic spellcheck to grammar tools to writing suggestions and today’s AI, have required writers to rethink their process and sort where such tools fit best in their workflow.
AI is already changing writing. Instead of making writing “easier,” it makes decision intelligence more critical. Writers who master when and how to harness AI's power will have a competitive advantage over those who insist on suffering as the only path to excellent writing.