The most difficult part of writing is actively managing feedback loops.
Firstly, you need to get out of your own way. Most people start editing before they finish writing, which short-circuits the process of exploring ideas.
Getting feedback from other people is usually helpful but slow. And unless you have a professional editor, there are only so many requests you can comfortably make of friends and family.
AI completely changes the feedback landscape for writing. It is faster and has unlimited patience – not to mention being trained on the entirety of language. For the vast majority of people and circumstances, AI editing is superior to soliciting human feedback.
The challenge with AI editing – like getting words down initially – is not to short-circuit the exploration process. It is dangerously accessible to dump a paragraph into ChatGPT and ask “what do you think?” But seeking immediate feedback can crowd out the mental space needed to figure out what we are trying to say.
As with other deeply personal disciplines, the key to using AI in writing will be figuring out how to use it as a thought partner rather than an executor. We now have the tools to design infinitely better feedback loops, if we’re thoughtful about how we use them.
