Writing With AI

This article will explain how I use AI to write, and why you should try this process too. 

AI is a great tool for writing short articles, but it’s usually easy to tell if something’s been written by AI. Its greatest advantage is that it’s quick. It can write infinitely faster than any human, and at a level that’s good enough that it often does outweigh the disadvantages. It can also introduce perspectives you might not have considered, and allows you to focus on the editing and improvement process, rather than the initial – often tedious – step of putting pen to paper. However, if you want to produce top-quality content, it’s better to use it to augment your writing, not replace it entirely. You know what message you want to convey much better than the model does. And, at the end of the day, we write better than AI. For now. Also, if we want to develop our own ideas, methods, and style, it’s important we practice the art of writing. That’s why, in our “About Us”, you’ll see we don’t use AI all that much. 

In this article, I’ll take you through the writing of an article with ChatGPT as my copilot. Which article, you ask? Why, this one! How better to illustrate my point than to let you see it as it’s produced. 

Let me first explain my process. First, if I decide to incorporate GenAI into my writing, I draft an outline. Then I write a basic draft of my article based on that outline. After I’ve done so, I give ChatGPT my outline, asking it to expand on my points and add any ideas I might have missed. Sometimes I keep the outline intentionally vague to see what the AI comes up with. Either way, this allows me to get another perspective on what I’m writing, and it often reveals gaps in my thoughts. Once it’s written an article, I compare it to mine, using it to improve and expand my article. I often find it phrases the same ideas in better ways that I can incorporate to improve my writing. Once I’ve revised my draft, I might run it through ChatGPT again to improve wording and cohesion. 

Now, I’ll show you my outline for this article:

• AI’s writing - flaws and advantages

• My process: <a rephrased version of the paragraph above. I’ll spare you the pain of reading the same thing twice.>

• The benefits of this process

My prompt was the following:

Write an article about incorporating ChatGPT into the writing process. I’ll share one way of going about it, with the following outline. The article is for a blog about AI. Keep it concise, direct, and lighthearted. Use the following outline:

• Advantages and flaws of AI’s writing processes

• <my process>

• The benefits of this process

Don’t be afraid to mention other ideas, restructure the article, or approach my ideas from different angles. 

As you can see, I made some tweaks to my outline to get more out of the model.

Now I’ll explain why I’ve bolded certain sentences. Those are sentences that I lifted from the model, or that the model gave me inspiration for. See? I don’t know about you, but I think its help was valuable.

This method gives me the opportunity to look at my writing from an outside perspective, and gives me ideas in terms of structure, wording, and style. It also speeds up revision, putting good suggestions at my fingertips almost instantly. At the same time, it allows me to ensure the article sounds more like me than like ChatGPT. Thinking through the whole article first and coming up with my own ideas ultimately results in a better, more thorough, and more nuanced article. I manage to avoid the platitudes and generic language AI spits out while learning through the process. I’d say it’s the best of both worlds.