Writing is a superpower in this AI age
We all think that AI has taken away the need to write. But writing is a superpower especially in this AI age. It is a superpower that magnifies what you can DO, and magnifies what you can BECOME.
If I have one piece of advice to offer to anyone graduating school, entering college, graduating college, or for anyone else, it is this: Learn to write. And write everyday.
Writing is a superpower in this AI age. It is a superpower that magnifies what you can DO, and magnifies what you can BECOME.
I am amazed that we didn’t see this when we wrote this passage in our book, Journey of the Mind, in March 2021 – twenty months before the release of ChatGPT. Why is writing a superpower? And why are words a window into the universe of possibilities? Here’s why.
We all think that AI has taken away the need to write. You give it some rough prose and out comes sparkly, polished prose, emphatic or engaging or emotional (and speckled with em-dashes), as you want it to be.
People talk about the need to craft prompts the right way, not realizing something profound.
PROMPT is PERSPECTIVE.
And PERSPECTIVE is you articulating your SELF.
By stringing together a unique sequence of words you not only DO, you also BECOME—by knowing yourself, exploring yourself, and ultimately, expanding your SELF.
I say write and not speak because there is a subtle and powerful difference. Speaking is transient and linear. With words, you can "draw" a landscape. You can chart different paths. You paint a multidimensional picture.
To write is to think clearly. To write is to introspect. To write is to take fleeting thoughts and crystallize them for future inspection. To build magnificent castles with words as foundations upon foundations.
The beautiful thing about words is that you can use them to craft both a TELESCOPE into the universe of possibilities AND a MICROSCOPE into the boundless within.
For about the last forty years, writing in a particular language was the ticket to speaking to a planetary intelligence. We called that programming. It was a superpower. Thanks to AI, this power is now available to all. Well, all who can write.
Here’s an example: Make a game that helps 6-year-old kids learn to read. An AI will create a full-fledged downloadable version in under 10 minutes. But that won’t be enough to make it engaging and playable and fun.
What is missing here? We are asking the AI to fill in a lot of blanks. What is a good game? What is the right approach to learning to read? In a world where anyone can create this in 10 minutes, how can it stand apart?
Here is a game based on the above PROMPT that current-day AI can generate in under 30 seconds. It’s actually decent. But not great. That’s where you can take it. By writing. Why is that?
There is a gravitational pull towards the median quality answer in AI. That is, something that is commonly considered good. But not something that is uncommonly good, but has not been recognized yet.
This is because of the way reward mechanisms work in AI. They reward predicting the next word. And you can predict the next word only when there are patterns. Creativity and uniqueness break patterns.
And this is where us humans, with our unique constellation of experiences and unique trajectory through life, can be demonstrably, computationally unique. The beautiful thing is that this uniqueness is our SELF itself.
The act of writing is how we discover this uniqueness. In being able to articulate it in words, you imbue it with permanence and the ability to build on top of it. You are literally building your Self.
We often implicitly think of the Self as something to be discovered. It is an unfolding story. And you, along with the world, are its co-author.
Think of it this way. The world, and the AIs trained on it, provides the public library of words and ideas. This is the source of the median, the predictable, the cliché. It’s the vocabulary everyone is given.
But your life’s work is not to check out a pre-written book about who you are. It’s to write your own. The act of writing is the act of choosing your words from that vast library and stitching them together in a sequence that has never existed before. You are weaving your experiences, your perspectives, and your aspirations into a coherent narrative.
This is a story written in real-time. Each time you write, you are editing the latest chapter. You have the chance to not reinforce an old plotline, and introduce a whole new one.
Writing, then, is the ultimate skill of self-authorship. It is how you take the raw material of existence and build a singular identity. It is how you ensure you are not merely an echo, but a voice.
So, Write.