My Dog Is Better Than Your Dog (AI Takes Away The Price)

“Everyone thinks they have the fastest dog at the dog park.”

My wife and I say this to each other as a reminder that it can be almost impossible to evaluate your own kid’s performance objectively.  The saying harkens back to the best dog I ever had, Lily.

Lily was a runt of a Boston Terrier, weighing in at an elfish 11 pounds.  I had gifted her to my then girlfriend, now wife, after a year of dating.  I got the dog from a rather shady set of characters and at great personal risk.

As we potty trained Lily and incorporated her into our life we were convinced that not only was she fast, but she could also compete in the doggie Olympics.  We were young, foolish, and blinded by our adoration for that dog.

Our hopes were dashed when we took her to her first dog park date to socialize her with the unwashed masses of inferior canines.  It was a rude awakening to see our beloved pup humbled in every single way a dog can be humbled.

It was a tough lesson but after that we were sure to create the conditions for her success by only placing her in opposition to “fashion” dogs that would fit in a purse.  We were rewarded by her domination and a very upset Paris Hilton.

The thing is, we would never have known her proper place in the physical hierarchy of dogs unless we experienced the pain of foolishness which I now know to be a requirement for success.

The Pain Of Foolishness

When you overcome an obstacle, be it a World War I trench or learning a new skill, you get to own the victory.  No one gets to take it away from you.  Their opinion of its value to you becomes irrelevant, especially if they themselves have never done it.  This means that with each victory, no matter how small,  you become stronger as a person.

This strength is needed during the course of any endeavor because nature does not give up her secrets easily.  There will never be anything worth gaining that will not have setbacks during the process of obtaining it.  This is a natural law of reality and cannot be changed.  To ignore this is naivety of the highest order.

It also means that you are going to look very dumb sometimes.  There are people right now who are fabulously wealthy for the simple reason that they couldn’t care less about looking like an idiot to others.  That is their only competitive edge and yet they are laughing all the way to the bank as they trade their mockers for haters.

The sooner you accept these two truths (foolishness and setbacks are a requirement for success) the sooner you can get to the business of taking action toward your goals.  When you incorporate this thinking into your writing as a service business, something else becomes immediately apparent:  Artificial Intelligence not only short circuits this process but has the promise to deliver you from it.

Artificial Intelligence Will Make You A Weak And Sad Writer

Before I wander off into AI bashing, there are some use cases that are exempt from what I am about to say with regard to writing.  The main one is research.  AI was very helpful for me with a recent client that specialized in actuarial science, of which I knew nothing when I took the project on.  AI allowed me to get a rough grounding of the topic so that I could start to think about it effectively.  This compressed a lot of timeframes for me with this client.  That said, I had to confirm everything I learned through traditional means because just like the stripper always lies about liking you, the veracity of AI’s conclusions cannot be trusted.

(The second use case that is excellent is proofreading for blatant errors and typos without rewriting the copy.)

Now that is out of the way, I want to address the ultimate goal of the AI gurus with respect to writing, which is perfection.  The utopia that everyone is chirping about hopefully is the situation where you get client-ready copy after a prompt or two.  Putting aside the fact that this outcome allows for any two-bit brained rapscallion varmint to replace you, the writer, this process isn’t actually writing.  It’s copying and pasting at scale.

LLMs work by predicting the next needed word in a sentence by looking at a bajillion inputs by other people and collating them into the best option for the prompt given.  Nothing is created, only regurgitated.

The process of writing is the exact opposite.  Discoveries spring forth through the act of writing.  This is both as a result of the reps, but also from the feedback from the marketplace itself.  AI inserts itself into this process.  This friction removes the victories for the writer, thereby never allowing the writer to build the strength they need.  In effect, they become slaves to the AI.

I don’t need your agreement, argument, or opinion on this assertion.  It is a fact that I have certainty about from typing MILLIONS of words on a keyboard for myself and clients.

Getting paid to write is a lot like acting.  You need a “break” of some kind.  When you get that break, you then leverage it to similar types of work.  From there you have a position of strength where you can move into different types of writing and pay scales.

That is the point where everyone calls you lucky.

AI takes away the verisimilitude of your breaks.

If you don’t gain strength from the process you won’t have the fortitude to take the risks you need to take to design the life you want.  You will be steered by AI’s competence and applicability.  Not your own.  There is a metaphysical consequence to this.  The loss of the “magic” of the crafted word, if you will.  Unfortunately, it is like the matrix, it can only be experienced.

AI, on the other hand, only takes you deeper into the systems of the world.  Lots of people are fine living there.  I am not one of them.  You have to decide for yourself where you want to live but the only way to make an informed choice is to experience both places.  Your ticket to the creative clearing of writing is volume writing reps.

Get to writing. 

I promise you it’s worth it.

Irregular Means Irregular

If you haven’t noticed, this newsletter comes out inconsistently.  This is by design.  I get to it when I get to it.  If you want to hear from me on these topics on a much more regular basis (daily-ish), you can follow me on X/Twitter here: @understorybard

(You now have 17 issues of the Dispatch to decide if I am worth listening to. If you answer this in the affirmative go follow me on X/Twitter. This is what I ask of you today.)

More in a bit . . . Wade, The Understory Bard

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