AI and LLMs pose a particularly visceral threat to the typing class. Writers, editors, poets, freelancers, marketing copywriters and others are voicing reasonable (and unreasonable) objections to the pace and impact of tools like Claude, Kimi and ChatGPT.
I think we have two choices, particularly poignant on US Labor Day…
The first is to walk away from the tools. You’re probably not going to persuade your competitors and your clients to have as much animosity for AI automation as you do, and time spent ranting about it is time wasted. But, you can walk away. There’s a long history of creative professionals refusing to use the technology of the moment and thriving.
If you’re going to walk away, the path is clear. Your work has to become more unpredictable, more human and more nuanced. It has to cost more and be worth more. It turns out that the pace of your production isn’t as important as its impact. Writing a hand-built Linkedin post that gets 200 comments isn’t a productive path in a world where anyone can do that. If we’re going to put ourselves on the hook, we need to really be on the hook.
Remember the mall photographers who took slightly better than mediocre photos of kids at Sears? They’re gone now, because we can take slightly better than mediocre photos at home.
The other option is to dance. Outsource all relevant tasks to an AI to put yourself on the hook for judgment, taste and decision-making instead. Give yourself a promotion, becoming the arbiter and the publisher, not the ink-stained wretch. Dramatically increase your pace and your output, and create work that scares you.
This requires re-investing the time you used to spend on tasks. Focus on mastering the tools, bringing more insight to their use than others. Refuse to publish mediocre work.
It’s tempting to fear AI slop, because it’s here and it’s going to get worse. But there’s human slop all over the internet, and it’s getting worse as well.
Whether you dance or walk away, the goal is the same: create real value for the people who need it. Do work that matters for people who care.
If we’re going to make a difference, we’ll need to bring labor to the work. The emotional labor of judgment, insight and risk.