Tools like ChatGPT are great at generating plausible sounding words – and they can churn them out at speed and industrial scale.
But just because the act of writing is now fantastically easy, that doesn’t change things for readers.
In fact, today’s readers – or ‘audiences’ as we like to call them – have never faced such an onslaught. On average, people are exposed to between 6,000 and 10,000 advertisements a day, per Forbes. Never mind the flood of derivative automated drivel passed off as thoughtful writing.
Digital technology built the channels and now generative AI will stuff everything full to bursting.
Readers are drowning and we’ve got to throw them some rope.
So, then, what is the real value of a writer?
It’s not writing speed or volume – your audience doesn’t care how much you write or the frequency you publish.
The writer’s job today is about clarity and concision – making your point in as few words as possible.
Like French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal said: “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.”
Brevity is brutally hard because it forces you to distil your message to a core truth – a single idea or argument than can be gifted to your readers.
The process takes time, a deep understanding of who you’re writing for, and good instincts for a point of view that readers are willing to entertain.
Attention is hard to get. Say something that deserves it.
ChatGPT might be fast, but a human writer respects the reader’s attention.