Writing and AI

On Dan Heath’s podcast What It’s Like to Be ... , Stephen Krupin, speechwriter (for President Barack Obama, among others), commented on how he sees AI and the work of speechwriting:

“What problem are you trying to solve? I think if you think of writing as something to knock off your to-do list, then I see the value in getting a passable draft out the door. If you are trying to connect a person to other people, like a speaker to an audience, in an authentic way, that actually moves them or makes them think differently about something or changes their minds or changes their behavior, I don’t think it is yet an efficient tool for that. I think if you think of writing as a burden, then I get the desire for shortcuts. If you think of writing as an opportunity, as a valuable process that clarifies what you think, that helps you discover new connections and connect different dots and challenge your assumptions and force you to be precise in how you articulate your ideas, why would you want to skip that step?”

Dan Heath said that he was going to print out those sentences and put them on his computer. I’m putting them here.

And if I were not retired from teaching, I’d be sharing these sentences with my students. Also these sentences about bringing a forklift into the weight room.

Related reading
All OCA AI posts (Pinboard)