https://paulgraham.com/writes.html

bg image(https://s.turbifycdn.com/aah/paulgraham/bel-6.gif)
[bel-7] * [bel-8]

          Writes and Write-Nots

          October 2024

          I'm usually reluctant to make predictions about technology,
          but I feel fairly confident about this one: in a couple
          decades there won't be many people who can write.

          One of the strangest things you learn if you're a writer is
          how many people have trouble writing. Doctors know how many
          people have a mole they're worried about; people who are good
          at setting up computers know how many people aren't; writers
          know how many people need help writing.

          The reason so many people have trouble writing is that it's
          fundamentally difficult. To write well you have to think
          clearly, and thinking clearly is hard.

          And yet writing pervades many jobs, and the more prestigious
          the job, the more writing it tends to require.

          These two powerful opposing forces, the pervasive expectation
          of writing and the irreducible difficulty of doing it, create
          enormous pressure. This is why eminent professors often turn
          out to have resorted to plagiarism. The most striking thing to
          me about these cases is the pettiness of the thefts. The stuff
          they steal is usually the most mundane boilerplate -- the sort
          of thing that anyone who was even halfway decent at writing
          could turn out with no effort at all. Which means they're not
          even halfway decent at writing.

          Till recently there was no convenient escape valve for the
          pressure created by these opposing forces. You could pay
          someone to write for you, like JFK, or plagiarize, like MLK,
          but if you couldn't buy or steal words, you had to write them
          yourself. And as a result nearly everyone who was expected to
          write had to learn how.

          Not anymore. AI has blown this world open. Almost all pressure
          to write has dissipated. You can have AI do it for you, both
          in school and at work.

          The result will be a world divided into writes and write-nots.
          There will still be some people who can write. Some of us like
          it. But the middle ground between those who are good at
          writing and those who can't write at all will disappear.
          Instead of good writers, ok writers, and people who can't
          write, there will just be good writers and people who can't
          write.

          Is that so bad? Isn't it common for skills to disappear when
          technology makes them obsolete? There aren't many blacksmiths
          left, and it doesn't seem to be a problem.

          Yes, it's bad. The reason is something I mentioned earlier:
          writing is thinking. In fact there's a kind of thinking that
          can only be done by writing. You can't make this point better
          than Leslie Lamport did:

              If you're thinking without writing, you only think you're
              thinking.

          So a world divided into writes and write-nots is more
          dangerous than it sounds. It will be a world of thinks and
          think-nots. I know which half I want to be in, and I bet you
          do too.

          This situation is not unprecedented. In preindustrial times
          most people's jobs made them strong. Now if you want to be
          strong, you work out. So there are still strong people, but
          only those who choose to be.

          It will be the same with writing. There will still be smart
          people, but only those who choose to be.









          Thanks to Jessica Livingston, Ben Miller, and Robert Morris
          for reading drafts of this.



          --------------------------------------------------------------