AI Won't Replace Writing

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2024-11-27 06:30:05

In his most recent essay, Paul Graham, founder of Y-Combinator, misses the forest for the trees in his prediction that writing as a skill will be functionally extinct because of AI. To be specific, Graham thinks that many people won’t be able to write because AI has dissipated almost all pressure to write. And because the gap between being a good writer and not being able to write has disappeared.

I want to presuppose that when he says writing, Graham means communicating effectively and asynchronously through text. Not actually writing by typing keys or scratching pens. I don’t think that skill will ever go away because frankly, using your voice alone to communicate would suck. It is not realistic in any litany of places where it would either be inappropriate, too loud, or impossible to talk.

In his essay, Graham says, “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.”