the art of writing

The robot was quite good at copying my style, but much less good at writing anything meaningful. It could predict which words I would be most likely to use but it couldn’t make an original argument for me. Using the robot made me think a lot about the nature of writing and what goes in to its peculiar form of labor. AI tools fundamentally promise... See more

‘We all have a story to tell – the denial of that story can cause despair.’ I credit this to Arnold Zable but I think it comes from Jungian psychology . We are nothing but the sum of our stories. The more I write and perform, the more clarity it gives me on my personal history and understanding of human nature. Writing releases so many emotions and

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Needless to say, my ability in English composition didn’t amount to much. My vocabulary was severely limited, as was my command of English syntax. I could only write in simple, short sentences. That meant that, however complex and numerous the thoughts running around my head might be, I couldn’t even attempt to set them down as they came to me. The... See more

In my experience, there is no such thing as “clerical work” in writing: the donkey work is crucial to the process, as is having to sort through the mess of the draft — that’s the art of self-editing, and it’s the art of finding what you didn’t know you were looking for

GPT4's writing is better than 90% of people, but it's way worse than the top 1% of writers. h/t Nat Eliason