Can AI make mediocre writers better?

AI is an average writer. It creates clear but boring prose. Average writers aren’t very good teachers or editors.

So here’s how I see it.

If you are an excellent writer, you can use AI to do better research, draft ideas, test out different ways of writing, and get feedback. You can then use your own skill to take advantage of those capabilities.

So by improving writers’ productivity, AI makes excellent writers faster and better.

If you are an average writer, you can use AI to find your mistakes and suggest corrections. You an use it to become faster. You an use it to generate average prose quickly. But you probably don’t have the skill to take what it creates and make it excellent.

So AI can make average writers faster, but not better.

If you are a poor writer, AI can probably do a better job than you can. But you probably can’t tell the difference.

So AI can make a poor writer average.

The better a writer you are, the more AI can help you.

But it can’t make mediocre writers great.