I really dislike the flippant stance lots of writers take on AI: “AI can never replace storytelling, it will only displace the fake scrubs and posers, etc.” Especially when they dismiss actual professional concerns (livelihood, job markets, pay rates) with gruff emphasis on abstract merit.

Execs and management (and perhaps publishers in the near future, despite their doth-protest-too-much insistence on “human stories that connect us” or whatever) are ultimately not there to judge whether your writing or copy is better or more skillful than AI’s. To them, “replacement” is a financial decision. Is it possible to eliminate your role if large parts of it could be done, maybe not at 100% quality, but at 65%? Can we crash more books with fewer assistants if AI writes the copy and the overworked associate takes on training and correction duties? Will enough customers put up with an AI audiobook to justify cutting 3 freelance narrators from our stable? That’s what “replacement” is.

I know too many writers and editors who’ve been laid off in the past two years and now cannot find work. Publishing and news have been pioneering the art of “replacing” almost every role you can imagine — writers, bloggers, marketers, translators, copyeditors, illustrators, etc with AI for years. Were all those people just “not very good at it”? Did all the WaPo journalists laid off this month not hustle and improve their craft enough?

A former freelance client reached out to me last fall, offering to pay me one third of the rate they paid me in 2022. If I couldn’t do it, they said, no biggie, they’d run it through an AI. Guess I’m not very good at it, either!

“Replacement” isn’t just an aesthetic and personal-merit issue, and while I respect Edward and agree with him most of the time, this “real writers aren’t concerned with AI, my bag/project is secure, nothing personnel, kid” sentiment needs to change. And I’m likely a loser for spiking my cortisol over ragebait, but there are authors at the apex of the industry saying the exact same things, and I’m incredibly over it.