I’ve been writing professionally since 1997. While you might not agree with my stances on anything I write, you can tell I wrote it. Even in my early writing, my author voice shines through. And I love my em-dashes and commas. (Part of me would like to believe the LLMs stole so much of my work that they incorporate “my” em-dashes into their output. Too bad they did not add all my commas.)
And that’s part of the problem—that incorporating of other people’s ideas—when writers use LLMs to write “new” words.
If you take what an LLM gives you, you’re not writing new words. Instead, you’re stealing someone else’s words. Sometimes verbatim. Sometimes, it’s “just” the essence of the idea, except you did not manage to go through all the required thinking to learn what those ideas mean.
Other people wrote those words. When you wrote papers in school, your teachers called it “plagiarizing” if you took someone else’s ideas verbatim. That’s stealing. You have alternatives.
Three Big Ideas About Stealing or Cheating
The big three ideas here:
- Don’t use an LLM to outline a blog post or book. Instead, ask an LLM which books or sites you should read to understand what you want to write about. Then, choose your angle on that topic.
- Use your writing practice to learn how to cycle between thinking, learning, and writing. (Be very judicious with any grammar/spelling/punctuation changes from any tool.)
- Your readers want your authenticity as a writer. Share your data. Write your stories. Make your writing unique.
Don’t steal from other writers. The LLMs already did that.
Don’t shortchange yourself. Learn to think and learn as you write. I do this because of how I think about my writing. See Writing Secret 9A: Choose How You Write: Prototype or Draft.
Offer your readers something useful, something they can’t get anywhere else. That’s your stories and your data. When you share your stories and data, you invite your readers into your context. Your readers are smart enough to understand how your context matches theirs and when it does not.
How to Use AI to Help Your Writing
If you’ve been writing for a while, ask your friendly LLM to analyze what you have already written. The LLMs excel at delivering insights into your data. If you’re new to writing, consider asking your LLM where your expertise intersects with what people want to know. Now, you know what to write about.
Don’t give your readers AI slop. That’s regression to the mean (or below the mean).
This is a great time to be a writer. People want your authenticity, experience, and data—because they do not want AI slop. Readers want real information they can do something with. Offer them that, and you won’t need to steal or cheat anyone. Especially yourself.