This is a little experiment. I’m asking you to share something. Write a post on your favorite social platform — LinkedIn, Instagram, Threads, Substack, X, your blog, whatever. Include this text (or your own version of it): Has AI changed how you write . . . or what you think of what you read? Take…
Newsletter 165. Return of the biggest survey of writers’ AI attitudes, including a chance to participate. Plus, the courage to stop a bully, the breadth of professional networks, three people to follow and three books to read. Writers, it’s time tell us how you feel about AI AI-powered large language models have made the biggest…
Newsletter 164. Why do people pay to have their work insulted? Plus, Google pays for Spirit Airlines’ data, the White House’s gender confusion, three people to follow and three books to read. Please, sir, may I have another? A popular meme suggests: “Describe your job badly.” With that in mind, here’s what I do for…
Anthropic, the company that created the AI tool Claude, has announced it will include invisible watermarks in Claude-generated content, including text, graphics, and code. As a writer and editor, I’ll concentrate on what this means about AI-generated text content. These are some key features of Claude’s watermarking: Why this is great Tools like Pangram are…
Yesterday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg released a 6,500-word statement titled “The Future is for Everyone: The Path to a Positive AI Future.” It is hopeful and utopian. I don’t believe it. After you read this, I expect you will be suspicious as well. There are two historical principles here that you should be aware of….
It happened again. A friend referred an author to me. He’s looking for a developmental editor. There are a lot of questions I ask authors when I consider working on a book. Who is your audience? What’s your idea? If you were looking for an editor, what shortcomings of the book are you already aware…
This is the Gartner Hype Cycle. I have always admired the elegant way it explains how technology markets develop — and that’s high praise, given that I spent the heart of my career working for Gartner’s top competitor. AI, like every other new technology, is subject to the hype cycle. From 2023 to 2025, it…
Newsletter 161. Writers have always used text as a sort of code, to program the mind of the reader. Can AI do that better? Plus, deciphering publishing jargon, a college where the instructors are chatbots, troubling questions about the thriller Daggermouth, three people to follow, and three books to read. Prose is code Large Language…
The purpose of a book coach is to help you become a better writer and write a better, more effective, book. Now you can, at least in theory, hire an AI to do the same thing. Which is better? Let’s compare. AI wins on price, availability, and flexibility From a purely mechanical standpoint, AI wins….