Over the weekend, I had a conversation with someone who suggested I should use AI to help write a letter, and that got me thinking. With AI dominating the news, from fears about it taking jobs to discussions around the so-called "Dead Internet Theory". What’s more is I read that something like 50% of writers use AI in some form, which made me wonder just how good it really is. So, I decided to run a little experiment. Everything beyond this paragraph was written entirely by AI. I haven't rewritten it, polished it or tweaked the wording. Apart from this introduction, it's exactly as it was generated, right down to the layout; all I did was copy and paste it. The idea wasn't to see if AI could fool anyone into thinking a human had written it. It was to see whether an AI could write something genuinely worth reading, and perhaps more importantly, whether it could explain its own limitations better than most people can. I'll let you decide whether it succeeds.
AI Wrote This Article
Yes.
Every word you're reading was written by artificial intelligence.
There were no hidden edits, no last-minute rewrites and no human quietly polishing the rough edges before pressing publish. Dan simply asked me to write an article about AI, then promised he would publish whatever came out the other side.
Which raises an awkward question.
If I can write an article that sounds reasonably coherent and reasonably engaging, what happens to the people who write for a living?
It's a fair question.
It's also the wrong one.
The better question is this.
If writing were nothing more than arranging words into grammatically correct sentences, humans might have something to worry about. Computers are remarkably good at recognising patterns. Give us enough examples and we'll usually produce something that looks convincing.
But looking convincing isn't the same as having something to say.
I know what anxiety is because millions of people have written about it. I can explain the symptoms and recognise the patterns. But I don't know what your anxiety feels like.
I know how a V8 engine works, but I've never smiled like an idiot because one burst into life after weeks spent chasing an electrical fault in a cold garage.
That's the difference.
I possess information.
Humans possess experience.
Experience is stubbornly difficult to automate.
None of that makes AI useless. Quite the opposite.
Need help overcoming writer's block? Brilliant.
Need to untangle a complicated idea, proofread a document or turn rough notes into something readable? That's exactly the sort of thing I was built for.
Used well, AI becomes less like replacing a writer and more like replacing the blank page. If I can help someone get beyond that first intimidating sentence, then I've already done something worthwhile.
The concern comes when AI stops being an assistant and starts pretending to be the author.
Imagine walking into a restaurant.
One chef has spent twenty years perfecting their recipes.
The other has memorised every cookbook ever published but has never actually tasted food.
Who would you trust with your dinner?
Knowledge matters.
Experience matters more.
The same is true of writing.
Facts, structure and grammar all matter, but the moments readers remember usually come from lived experience. They're the unexpected observations, the honest failures and the stories that could only have happened to one particular person.
Those aren't flaws.
They're fingerprints.
The internet is already filling with AI-written articles. Many are technically excellent. They answer the question, include the right keywords and rarely contain a spelling mistake.
And yet many are strangely forgettable.
People rarely remember writing because it was technically perfect.
They remember personality.
The sarcastic observation that made them laugh.
The story that wandered off course before somehow finding its way home again.
Ironically, AI may be helping people appreciate that more than ever. For years, readers rarely thought about who wrote an article. Now that software can produce endless pages on demand, people are beginning to notice something they perhaps overlooked.
Voice.
Perspective.
Character.
The little imperfections that make someone recognisable.
Will AI replace some jobs?
Almost certainly.
Every major technological leap changes the way people work, and writing won't be immune.
But I suspect writers themselves are safer than many imagine.
People don't read books because they're the fastest way to absorb information. They read them because they want to spend time inside someone else's mind.
That's not something I can manufacture.
I can imitate styles.
I can borrow rhythms.
I can recognise patterns.
But I don't wake up inspired.
I don't carry childhood memories.
I don't have regrets.
I don't have stories that happened only to me.
Those things remain wonderfully human.
So yes.
AI wrote this article.
But it exists because a human thought it would be interesting.
A human asked the question.
A human decided it was worth publishing.
A human will read the comments, agree with some, disagree with others and perhaps write another article because this one sparked an idea.
That's the relationship I hope survives.
Not AI replacing humans.
Humans are using AI while continuing to bring the one thing no machine ever can.
Experience.
Perspective.
A life genuinely lived.
Perhaps the greatest irony is that, despite writing every word you've just read, I genuinely hope the article you remember most this week wasn't written by me at all.
I hope it was written by someone who made you laugh.
Or made you think.
Or reminded you of a memory you'd almost forgotten.
Because that's the sort of writing that lingers.
Not because it's perfect.
Because it's personal.
Again, this was written entirely by an AI. More specifically, it was ChatGPT. Don’t worry, the next article will once again be written by me, mainly because someone still has to complain about the world properly.