One Wizard's Evolving Take on Artificial Intelligence

Over the past year or so, the question I’ve heard most often is:

“What do you think about AI tools like ChatGPT?”

Listen, I’m a writer who has long relished the struggle of crafting sentences by hand, and the idea of letting a machine touch my prose felt sacrilegious.

So in the beginning, I wasn’t convinced—my answer being some form of:

The AI output I’ve seen isn’t up to my standards, reads very bland, is very same-same, and the amount of time and energy spent editing to make the output usable is much greater than if I were to simply write from scratch.

But lately, I’ve had a change of heart—answering more along the lines of:

Thundering typhoons, I’m blown away! The outputs I’m getting from ChatGPT and Claude are incredible… Whatever updates they made recently, I didn't know they were close to unleashing this sort of ability. I must admit, I’m (begrudgingly) impressed.

Along with my evolving perspective on AI, however, has come a mixed bag of musings, learnings, and realisations—which I’ll share with you now:

#1. The fear of forgetting how to craft excellent writing.

For years, crafting excellent writing has been a battle, a kind of beautiful torture. Now with letting AI take over some of the more labour intensive aspects of creation, I’ve found myself questioning whether I’ll forget how to fight for a well-crafted sentence.

This shift has felt like finishing a years-long apprenticeship in relentlessly honing a specific craft… Only to be handed a magic wand after passing my final test.

There’s also the fear that I might slip into laziness, relying too much on AI to perfect my phrasing or structure. While leaning heavily on AI is tempting, I’ve realised that mastering my own ideas is the difference between an AI’s “good” output, and a writer’s “great”—the latter being forged in late night wrestlings with rhythm and flow.

So I’m learning how to let AI be a tool, not a crutch—reminding myself to stay engaged in the creative process and avoid delegating anything and everything.

#2. The startling disconnect between time spent and project completed.

The ideation, planning, outlining, researching, and drafting phases of a project now require a startlingly less amount of time and energy. The fine-tuning and polishing still takes a while though, which is fine by me—a fair trade to say the least.

#3. The forced delving into specifics and details.

In order to get output from AI that’s anywhere near usable, you have to be exceptionally clear, detailed, and specific in asking for what you want—which is a skill you don’t necessarily develop when mining your own brain for the words you need.

At first, I’d say something like, “Write me an email about X for Y audience.”

Now, my prompts are more like, “Write me a story about X from the perspective of Y. Use a conversational, lighthearted, and humorous tone. Remember A, B, and C details. I want the reader to feel curious, inspired, and contemplative.”

The results of these ‘classes’ of prompts? Worlds apart. In teaching the machine what I want, I feel like I’m sculpting with invisible hands—each prompt and manual revision chipping away at a glob of words until the final, glorious picture is revealed.

#4. The unexpected boon to my own learning.

Sometimes the AI’s output contains facts, stats, or statements that I’m not sure about, and thus need to fact-check. For example, I’m currently working on a writing course—the writing course I’ve had rattling around in my noggin for ages (there’s a spoiler for you). As I’ve chipped away at the outline and materials, prompted and prodded along by AI, I’m unearthing things I do naturally in my writing, better understanding how I can convey and pass them along to my future Apprentices.

#5. The increased ability to spin multiple plates.

Thanks to the reduction in creation time and personal energy required, I’ve found I’m able to keep pushing multiple projects ahead without feeling overwhelmed.

In this, working with ChatGPT and Claude has me feeling like Tony Stark in Iron Man, collaborating with his trusty robot assistant, Jarvis. Creation has moved from feeling like a solo effort, to an artistic problem I can work through via collaboration—with the ability to bounce ideas off a colleague who’s incredibly smart and relentlessly patient.

The creative landscape is indeed changing, and I believe staying on the bleeding-edge is a wise decision that’ll pay dividends in the future.

As I step forward into this AI-augmented future, I’ll keep my pen near though—for as every writer knows, the irreplaceable human touch is always in demand.

With love from the forest,

~ Alexander

(AKA: Wiz, WOW, and The Wizard of Wordcraft)