Thank for your thoughts. Enjoyed the read. I agree. While AI is scary, it need not scare us. We need to adapt to use it. We need to find our use cases without compromising with our core values, and I admit it is always a constant battle to avoid the compromise.
At work we use Microsoft copilot for capturing meeting notes and summarizing the takeaways and action items. We also use it to polish our emails for better readability. While I am someone who loves to write my own emails (and I’m good at it) I have started to embrace AI suggestions to improve it. The fact remains: we are good but we can always be better.
For my writing work, I started to use Otter AI to capture my interviews and conversations with people so I can use it to reflect back, draw inspiration from, for my next piece. I’ll ask it to summarize the chat with a barista who talked to me about her tattoos, or a set designer who navigates a tough industry after the LA fires, or a goodwill employee who researches serial killers for his podcast despite being genetically blind. These stories are summarized by ai to give me a starting point, to generate a story arc, as a database of thoughts and conversations for future stories.
And yes, generating better and faster headlines is a no-brainer use case for writers.
I love this! Do you know about Plaud? I just got it (and haven't used it yet) but (and I get this is scary), it's a device you wear around your neck that can capture your conversations and then transcribe and organize them. Obviously it requires getting permission from the people you're talking to but I am so excited to use it to capture those things I think at the time are innocuous and then look back on later and wish I remembered them better. Memory is fallible but recording isn't (really).
Btw after reading your post, i asked my AI sidekick (Otter.ai) to rework my substack tag line. It referenced all my conversations and came up with this:
Here's a merged tagline that incorporates aspects from all three:
The Marinade: News infused with insight, seasoning your worldview and flavoring your day
This combined tagline captures the essence of:
1. Flavoring your day (from option 1)
2. Infusing news with insight (from option 5)
3. Seasoning your worldview (from option 6)
It emphasizes how this newsletter aims to provide news that not only informs but also adds flavor to your daily life, offers deeper insights, and helps shape your perspective on the world. This aligns well with the concept of a marinade, which infuses food with flavor and transforms it, much like how well-curated news can enrich your understanding and outlook.
That’s something I churned out in seconds. Imagine how long a human would take. We need our AI sidekicks to make us create faster but always with integrity.
You are deluding yourself. You did not "churn out in seconds" what you used - a machine did it for you bc you were not willing to take the time to develop your creativity yourself.
So what if it "takes time" for you to do something better?
Guess what? There is no real creative fulfillment in what you did. It was only empty ego gratification. There is no "integrity" in that.
No, that’s sounds like what I need. Pretty neat gadget to have. I subscribe to otter.ai for $99 a year which does an excellent job transcribing. Wonder how will Plaud.ai will transcribe.
I get the people that move instinctively against it, but I'd like to know if they have truly spend some time with ChatGPT to actually grasp what the thing is and what is it not. Having direct and prolonged interaction with it vanishes all sorts of prejudices. I use it a lot -actually, couldn't do my bilingual newsletter as it is if it not were for it- and don't consider it a writing of a lesser dignity.
I type the same or more, I do the writing itself but iterate it with ChatGPT as I have it trained it with the bibliography I'm working with: it provides ideas, connections that you were not aware of, it just takes charge of the processing dimension of the act of writing, and liberates a ton of space for creative freedom. When I've been using it for writing I've found myself just 'writing', like I always do but in a new way, with a lot of possibilities and so many limitations.
You can't ask the machine to speak with your voice, you have to own your voice from beginning to end. How you do it, I don't really care. Words are what makes the magic. These Language Models are dumb know-it-alls. It is not precisely "easy" to work with them in order to get valuable results, nor predictable. But having a "voice" always available to speak to and iterate thoughts is a game-changer for me (as I have to always carry in memory a lot of data), and a ton of fun.
As a 59 year old dude, my brain is pretty much cooked well done from being on the stove for so long, so I am not as vulnerable to AI and social media as kids, and that is very much my concern. We adults have mechanisms - hopefully - in place to deal with AI, asserting that we have choice, but we are doing a terrible job of demonstrating that independence when we are glued to devices, and when we take our cues from “thought leaders” who say “I asked Grok …”.
We punish businesses for making food that makes us sick, but we can barely bring attention to how AI is being used to target teens and children. It’s alarming how the tech companies have built up many fronts to stop legislation that would stop the practice of using teen depression as just another demographic data point and for marketing to them.
We have to ensure that the next generation is prepared to assert that sense of judgement when encountering AI. Otherwise they will never develop what we as adults already possess.
This ( am not as vulnerable to AI and social media as kids, and that is very much my concern. We adults have mechanisms - hopefully - in place to deal with AI, asserting that we have choice, but we are doing a terrible job of demonstrating that independence when we are glued to devices, and when we take our cues from “thought leaders” who say “I asked Grok …”.) is 100% the best counter point imaginable. As the mother of a nearly two-year-old, I need to give this more thought.
This is the first piece I’ve read that comes close to my own thoughts and feelings on this matter. It’s just a tool. Pick it up and use it or don’t. But it’s not an existential threat it’s not a rival. It’s just software. Specifically it’s data management software and can be useful in that way, eg. for keeping track of the Story Bible for a long-running series. AI powered speech recognition apps are also a hell of a lot cheaper and more accurate than the old mechanical Turk models like Dragon Dictate by Nuance. I doubt large language models will ever write a great book or even a really good paragraph. They can’t think and they can’t feel. This makes it almost impossible to tell a good story.
Nice read. This stuff needs to be said/read/reread. Use AI to give you superpowers, not just meet the status quo- is what I tell colleagues freaking out. That said, I do have some thoughts on the the near future. You might like this. https://biggiantwords.substack.com/p/the-future-of-storytelling?r=3igs1 Or more down-to-earth:
Yes. It's a complicated topic (and I'm being called "stupid" on Facebook for sharing these thoughts) but I think the people who venemously attack those who are open-minded about it are reacting solely from fear without any firsthand experience with it. Contempt prior to investigation, as they say.
Fear is powerful. And I can actually understand it to some extent. I can’t shake the injustice of ai systems learning from our collective works and the displacing future generations of creatives. But I dont think that displacement is inevitable. In My two posts on it, especially the first, I’ve had feedback like, “are you just going against the grain for attention?” Something I can’t imagine them saying if they actually read the post or tried any of the tools. I’m 100% for AI. We just need some guardrails. Easy said than done, I know. But I’ve made a start…
What about those of us who have seen it used and realize that it is a trap?
You are not open-minded. You are simply not seeing what it really is - a substitute for your own innate creativity and just another ploy from the dark side to kill your divinely-bestowed abilities. AI is the consummation of over a hundred years of propaganda bullshit techniques to destroy the essential human being and make programmed, computer-chipped slaves out of us, replacing everything natural with artificial simulacras that lead a person to believe that the artificial world is better than the natural one. It is exactly like substituting cheap wood-grain simulated plastic for real wood trim in a house. Fool the eye, lower the frequency, steal the world from us.
At a writers' conference in San Francisco not long ago, one of the big messages (re AI) to the writers in attendance, was to 'get over it.' AI is here to stay. It's a tool. No different from when we evolved from pencil and paper to computer. Use it to help you. It can't write a book, it doesn't have the emotional bandwidth to draw a reader in and hold him/her captivated. A tool only
Society is repetition of the same. Once again fear mongering will be replaced with adopting and most of whose who haven’t learned how to user new tools will likely miss out?
This is probably one of the most grounded takes on AI writing that I've seen on substack, and I'm glad to see the Gen xers finally starting to wake up to reality. The reality of the internet of writers is that everyone is just another one of the lemmings in the group of lemmings just saying what lemmings say and doing what lemmings do. Very few of them have original ideas for the courage to follow through the ideas if they had them in the first place. So it's good to see somebody taking a bold stance like this.
I have found that the best strategy is to learn all you can about the world as it changes around you and find a way to adapt and adopt. I use it to summarize my chapters and help me with my research. I can't wait for it to be able to digest all of my writing and look for flaws in my POV characters or their voices.
This is such a brilliantly articulated piece — thank you for cutting through the noise with insight and nuance. You’ve captured exactly where I stand on the issue. The tendency to anthropomorphise AI or reduce it to dystopian clichés is not only reductive — it’s historically predictable. Every wave of transformative technology, from the printing press to the industrial revolution to the digital age, has been met with fear by those most attached to the status quo. And yet, it is always those who lean in with discernment who shape the future.
I’ve always excelled in writing and creativity — it’s been a core part of who I am. But as my professional world expanded — managing a healthcare provider across two states, leading over 200 staff, and running two side businesses in consulting and education — the space to express myself creatively began to shrink. I was leading powerfully but losing touch with a part of myself that made it all sustainable.
Enter AI — not as a threat, but as a liberator.
These tools have helped me reclaim time, clarity, and creative bandwidth. Writing has become a form of therapy again. I’m now working on a novel — something I never thought I’d find the space for amid all the demands. AI hasn’t made me less human or less original; it’s made me more of both. It’s helped me lead more strategically, write more fluidly, and think more expansively.
This piece is a timely and necessary reminder: the power of AI is not in what it replaces — but in what it can restore and unlock, if we choose to engage with it consciously, ethically, and courageously.
Wow. This totally drew me in. Love your writing and the topic of AI…phew! I see it as a helpful tool not a replacement for already brilliant writers. 💙
Absolutely love your take on this! It’s a tool - plain and simple … a really cool tool if you know what you’re trying to get at… I love the entire act of writing - the potential…the new…and sometimes you don’t have the luxury to bounce ideas off another writer, so it’s great to get the take of AI of your work at those times - you need a questioning mind and a critical eye to leverage it’s potential … but ultimately if you don’t know where you’re going with your writing then that will be reflected in AI most assuredly… but if you have a great idea or concept it can sometimes smooth out the rough edges and give you an occasional idea you never had considered… l continue to lean in
Thank for your thoughts. Enjoyed the read. I agree. While AI is scary, it need not scare us. We need to adapt to use it. We need to find our use cases without compromising with our core values, and I admit it is always a constant battle to avoid the compromise.
At work we use Microsoft copilot for capturing meeting notes and summarizing the takeaways and action items. We also use it to polish our emails for better readability. While I am someone who loves to write my own emails (and I’m good at it) I have started to embrace AI suggestions to improve it. The fact remains: we are good but we can always be better.
For my writing work, I started to use Otter AI to capture my interviews and conversations with people so I can use it to reflect back, draw inspiration from, for my next piece. I’ll ask it to summarize the chat with a barista who talked to me about her tattoos, or a set designer who navigates a tough industry after the LA fires, or a goodwill employee who researches serial killers for his podcast despite being genetically blind. These stories are summarized by ai to give me a starting point, to generate a story arc, as a database of thoughts and conversations for future stories.
And yes, generating better and faster headlines is a no-brainer use case for writers.
I love this! Do you know about Plaud? I just got it (and haven't used it yet) but (and I get this is scary), it's a device you wear around your neck that can capture your conversations and then transcribe and organize them. Obviously it requires getting permission from the people you're talking to but I am so excited to use it to capture those things I think at the time are innocuous and then look back on later and wish I remembered them better. Memory is fallible but recording isn't (really).
Btw after reading your post, i asked my AI sidekick (Otter.ai) to rework my substack tag line. It referenced all my conversations and came up with this:
Here's a merged tagline that incorporates aspects from all three:
The Marinade: News infused with insight, seasoning your worldview and flavoring your day
This combined tagline captures the essence of:
1. Flavoring your day (from option 1)
2. Infusing news with insight (from option 5)
3. Seasoning your worldview (from option 6)
It emphasizes how this newsletter aims to provide news that not only informs but also adds flavor to your daily life, offers deeper insights, and helps shape your perspective on the world. This aligns well with the concept of a marinade, which infuses food with flavor and transforms it, much like how well-curated news can enrich your understanding and outlook.
That’s something I churned out in seconds. Imagine how long a human would take. We need our AI sidekicks to make us create faster but always with integrity.
You are deluding yourself. You did not "churn out in seconds" what you used - a machine did it for you bc you were not willing to take the time to develop your creativity yourself.
So what if it "takes time" for you to do something better?
Guess what? There is no real creative fulfillment in what you did. It was only empty ego gratification. There is no "integrity" in that.
OP was apparently fired from Variety magazine. I wonder if plagiarism was a factor...
No, that’s sounds like what I need. Pretty neat gadget to have. I subscribe to otter.ai for $99 a year which does an excellent job transcribing. Wonder how will Plaud.ai will transcribe.
i think it syncs with Otter!!!
I get the people that move instinctively against it, but I'd like to know if they have truly spend some time with ChatGPT to actually grasp what the thing is and what is it not. Having direct and prolonged interaction with it vanishes all sorts of prejudices. I use it a lot -actually, couldn't do my bilingual newsletter as it is if it not were for it- and don't consider it a writing of a lesser dignity.
I type the same or more, I do the writing itself but iterate it with ChatGPT as I have it trained it with the bibliography I'm working with: it provides ideas, connections that you were not aware of, it just takes charge of the processing dimension of the act of writing, and liberates a ton of space for creative freedom. When I've been using it for writing I've found myself just 'writing', like I always do but in a new way, with a lot of possibilities and so many limitations.
You can't ask the machine to speak with your voice, you have to own your voice from beginning to end. How you do it, I don't really care. Words are what makes the magic. These Language Models are dumb know-it-alls. It is not precisely "easy" to work with them in order to get valuable results, nor predictable. But having a "voice" always available to speak to and iterate thoughts is a game-changer for me (as I have to always carry in memory a lot of data), and a ton of fun.
Couldn’t agree more!
As a 59 year old dude, my brain is pretty much cooked well done from being on the stove for so long, so I am not as vulnerable to AI and social media as kids, and that is very much my concern. We adults have mechanisms - hopefully - in place to deal with AI, asserting that we have choice, but we are doing a terrible job of demonstrating that independence when we are glued to devices, and when we take our cues from “thought leaders” who say “I asked Grok …”.
We punish businesses for making food that makes us sick, but we can barely bring attention to how AI is being used to target teens and children. It’s alarming how the tech companies have built up many fronts to stop legislation that would stop the practice of using teen depression as just another demographic data point and for marketing to them.
We have to ensure that the next generation is prepared to assert that sense of judgement when encountering AI. Otherwise they will never develop what we as adults already possess.
https://culturalcourage.substack.com/p/sever-the-roots-topple-the-tree-tech
This ( am not as vulnerable to AI and social media as kids, and that is very much my concern. We adults have mechanisms - hopefully - in place to deal with AI, asserting that we have choice, but we are doing a terrible job of demonstrating that independence when we are glued to devices, and when we take our cues from “thought leaders” who say “I asked Grok …”.) is 100% the best counter point imaginable. As the mother of a nearly two-year-old, I need to give this more thought.
You are absolutely right. Most younger people do not see what a trap AI is.
This is the first piece I’ve read that comes close to my own thoughts and feelings on this matter. It’s just a tool. Pick it up and use it or don’t. But it’s not an existential threat it’s not a rival. It’s just software. Specifically it’s data management software and can be useful in that way, eg. for keeping track of the Story Bible for a long-running series. AI powered speech recognition apps are also a hell of a lot cheaper and more accurate than the old mechanical Turk models like Dragon Dictate by Nuance. I doubt large language models will ever write a great book or even a really good paragraph. They can’t think and they can’t feel. This makes it almost impossible to tell a good story.
This: I doubt large language models will ever write a great book or even a really good paragraph. They can’t think and they can’t feel. BRILLIANT.
Nice read. This stuff needs to be said/read/reread. Use AI to give you superpowers, not just meet the status quo- is what I tell colleagues freaking out. That said, I do have some thoughts on the the near future. You might like this. https://biggiantwords.substack.com/p/the-future-of-storytelling?r=3igs1 Or more down-to-earth:
https://biggiantwords.substack.com/p/what-if-asimovs-three-laws-werent?r=3igs1
Yes. It's a complicated topic (and I'm being called "stupid" on Facebook for sharing these thoughts) but I think the people who venemously attack those who are open-minded about it are reacting solely from fear without any firsthand experience with it. Contempt prior to investigation, as they say.
Fear is powerful. And I can actually understand it to some extent. I can’t shake the injustice of ai systems learning from our collective works and the displacing future generations of creatives. But I dont think that displacement is inevitable. In My two posts on it, especially the first, I’ve had feedback like, “are you just going against the grain for attention?” Something I can’t imagine them saying if they actually read the post or tried any of the tools. I’m 100% for AI. We just need some guardrails. Easy said than done, I know. But I’ve made a start…
What about those of us who have seen it used and realize that it is a trap?
You are not open-minded. You are simply not seeing what it really is - a substitute for your own innate creativity and just another ploy from the dark side to kill your divinely-bestowed abilities. AI is the consummation of over a hundred years of propaganda bullshit techniques to destroy the essential human being and make programmed, computer-chipped slaves out of us, replacing everything natural with artificial simulacras that lead a person to believe that the artificial world is better than the natural one. It is exactly like substituting cheap wood-grain simulated plastic for real wood trim in a house. Fool the eye, lower the frequency, steal the world from us.
What a fucking tragedy!
This
'I know that I have railed against having AI write your books. And I still feel that way. But I am all for having AI help you with your books.'
At a writers' conference in San Francisco not long ago, one of the big messages (re AI) to the writers in attendance, was to 'get over it.' AI is here to stay. It's a tool. No different from when we evolved from pencil and paper to computer. Use it to help you. It can't write a book, it doesn't have the emotional bandwidth to draw a reader in and hold him/her captivated. A tool only
exactly...
Society is repetition of the same. Once again fear mongering will be replaced with adopting and most of whose who haven’t learned how to user new tools will likely miss out?
This is probably one of the most grounded takes on AI writing that I've seen on substack, and I'm glad to see the Gen xers finally starting to wake up to reality. The reality of the internet of writers is that everyone is just another one of the lemmings in the group of lemmings just saying what lemmings say and doing what lemmings do. Very few of them have original ideas for the courage to follow through the ideas if they had them in the first place. So it's good to see somebody taking a bold stance like this.
thank you! I wish I'd been quicker on other things...
I love this!
I have found that the best strategy is to learn all you can about the world as it changes around you and find a way to adapt and adopt. I use it to summarize my chapters and help me with my research. I can't wait for it to be able to digest all of my writing and look for flaws in my POV characters or their voices.
It actually can! (Have you used Claude?)
No, but I will give it a try. Thanks.
I found the best strategy is to embrace these tools to set fire to your imagination.
https://open.substack.com/pub/kennetheharrell/p/using-ai-art-as-gumbo-starter-for
100%. I have honestly never felt more creative since I started using these tools.
Same here
This is such a brilliantly articulated piece — thank you for cutting through the noise with insight and nuance. You’ve captured exactly where I stand on the issue. The tendency to anthropomorphise AI or reduce it to dystopian clichés is not only reductive — it’s historically predictable. Every wave of transformative technology, from the printing press to the industrial revolution to the digital age, has been met with fear by those most attached to the status quo. And yet, it is always those who lean in with discernment who shape the future.
I’ve always excelled in writing and creativity — it’s been a core part of who I am. But as my professional world expanded — managing a healthcare provider across two states, leading over 200 staff, and running two side businesses in consulting and education — the space to express myself creatively began to shrink. I was leading powerfully but losing touch with a part of myself that made it all sustainable.
Enter AI — not as a threat, but as a liberator.
These tools have helped me reclaim time, clarity, and creative bandwidth. Writing has become a form of therapy again. I’m now working on a novel — something I never thought I’d find the space for amid all the demands. AI hasn’t made me less human or less original; it’s made me more of both. It’s helped me lead more strategically, write more fluidly, and think more expansively.
This piece is a timely and necessary reminder: the power of AI is not in what it replaces — but in what it can restore and unlock, if we choose to engage with it consciously, ethically, and courageously.
This is a brilliantly articulated comment...
Thank you ☺️
Yeah, LLMs (“AI”) could have written this.
Wow. This totally drew me in. Love your writing and the topic of AI…phew! I see it as a helpful tool not a replacement for already brilliant writers. 💙
thank you...
Absolutely love your take on this! It’s a tool - plain and simple … a really cool tool if you know what you’re trying to get at… I love the entire act of writing - the potential…the new…and sometimes you don’t have the luxury to bounce ideas off another writer, so it’s great to get the take of AI of your work at those times - you need a questioning mind and a critical eye to leverage it’s potential … but ultimately if you don’t know where you’re going with your writing then that will be reflected in AI most assuredly… but if you have a great idea or concept it can sometimes smooth out the rough edges and give you an occasional idea you never had considered… l continue to lean in
Thx
exactly!
I love AI and write all about it. Especially if you learn it correctly. It’s a Gamechanger