I was recently discussing writing with a friend, and I realized a lot of people have a misconception about what creation actually is. People tend to think writing = generating text, so since AI is great at generating text, AI must be great at writing.
But I have a counterintuitive take: when I sit down at my computer and start typing, that's not the beginning of writing. It's the last step. 80% of the writing is already done. It just happened in my head.
The idea I'm writing about, I've probably been mulling over for a week or two. I've talked about it with different people, gotten various reactions and moments of recognition, seen other people post related thoughts. Different ideas and experiences collide and intertwine in my head, gradually forming the rough shape of what I want to write. By the time I actually sit down to type, the words flow out. It's easy, maybe 10 minutes and I'm done.
So how long did my writing process actually take? The typing part took 10 minutes. But the thinking, the colliding, the forming of a perspective, that part probably took a week. Except nobody considers that time “writing.” That's just “working, living.”
My social media looks like I'm posting constantly, but I actually spend no more than 3 to 5 hours a week making and publishing content. Because shooting videos and writing posts is just the “last mile” of content creation for me. By the time I'm talking into my phone about something, that idea has been circling in my head for days. I might have been thinking about it while brushing my teeth in the morning, thinking about it on my drive to work, bringing it up at lunch with someone...
For content creation, “thinking” is 90% of it, and actually “making” the content is only 10%. And because my day job, my learning, and my hobbies are all AI related, I don't need to set aside extra time to do this “thinking.” I'm already doing it day and night. Turning thoughts into content is just the easy part at the end.
There's an ancient Chinese saying that I really like: “功夫在诗外” (the real craft lies outside the poem): writing a good poem isn't just about the act of writing. It takes a rich life, reading, thinking.
AI can do a lot of things now, and everyone's worried about their jobs being replaced. I think every one of us should be asking: what is the actual essence of my work?
Writing ≠ generating text