Thanks for a great and thoughtful episode.
I’ve wondered why it is that some writers seem to be comfortable using AI at all levels of the writing process, especially giving AI some ideas and asking it to write their first draft. They feel like it’s their creation because the main ideas came from them, although the words and perhaps the organization did not. Others have an issue with using AI to write for them and would never consider allowing AI to write their first draft.
I think the difference in viewpoints is based mainly on how writers view themselves and their work.
If you envision yourself as a writer of documents, and your job is primarily to write down ideas in a way people can understand and potentially help them, the focus is on function. Anything that can make this process more efficient for the writer or improve their writing style is seen as a positive. Hence, using AI to write a first draft makes sense. After some editing, a finished document is published in a fraction of the time it took without AI.
On the other hand, if we see ourselves as artists of a craft, and our job is to reveal ourselves, our unique thinking, feelings, and viewpoints to readers through the prism that is uniquely us, the focus is on personal crafting. We don’t want AI to write a first draft because we know it won’t contain our unique organization and way of expressing our thoughts. We feel editing won’t be effective in revealing ourselves since we’re likely to be overly influenced, channeled, and constrained by the existence of an AI-generated first draft. We want to communicate our thoughts to our readers in a way that benefits them, but we want them to be our thoughts, our unique expressions. So it doesn’t matter how efficient AI is or how much time we save writing a first draft and producing a publishable document.