I’m Not a Writer; I’m a Conduit.

How should you anticipate an augmented future? It depends on what you do and how you make your money.

Everything is starting to change if you are a writer or rely on writers as part of your business model. Due diligence beholds the foundational professional concept of accountability. Actualizing is no one else’s job but your own.  Hesitation is a drug of choice.

Unprecedented Pace

ChatGPT accumulated over 100 million monthly users within two months of launching GPT4. It is the fastest-growing consumer application in history. Apple Intelligence is set to launch in the fall of 2024, along with their announcement to partner with OpenAI (Read TJ’s article on the marriage here). The two most powerful technology platforms, arguably in human history, will be integrated into every iPhone before the end of 2024. If you don’t notice these changes immediately, Siri and Sam Altman will know more about your kids than you do by the end of next year.

This week, I was asked, “When did you know you wanted to be a writer?”

I never wanted to be a writer.

I did it because I’ve been told for as long as I can remember that I have a strong command of the English language. But mostly, I did it because I like to think and I love to build. Over the years, it became my identity. Eventually, it became my career. Creative writing feeds the soul, as technical writing feeds the mind. I chose the latter. 

On Building Generative Artificial Intelligence Agents

This type of work is mechanical and methodical. There is a rhythm to taking complex processes and turning them into digestible concepts for the broader team to understand. How information is built for others to understand, the foundation of language and syntax requires me to utilize these same human skill sets to build robots. There are metrics and, with that, a momentum to optimize and maximize results.

With each repetitive process, regurgitated template, and repurposed content dump, you think about leveraging and creating efficiencies. I didn’t realize I was practicing for this moment my whole life. I learned to type at 100 words per minute versus 20 by hand. I’ve always loved to put things together and observe the process. I’ve always had to adapt, and I’ve always done things the hard way.

To The “Human-Written Only” Types

I’m not sure if I should be more worried or bemused by companies who do not understand the value of writers. Instead of shorting, you are turtling. So, what do you think your company will look like to others in a year, considering you haven’t even stepped onto the AI Arms Race moving walkway, holding your clown briefcase, standing at the entrance of your fate while grimly mocking others as they ride by you in a spaceship? Do you think this change will happen gradually, like other advancements in your lifetime? Of course you do. That is why you’re like this. 

Things to Consider Before Flying Into a Jealousy-Induced Bulletpoint Emoji Use Meltdown on LinkedIn

What do you think will become of your company when the good writers start walking out the door, rightfully avoidant of your attempt to force them into mentally fatiguing workloads in return for menial wages? This is the death of journalism.

How do you think advertisers and clients will perceive you when someone else can bid on a contract at 10-25% of what you charge to waste their money on mundane, repetitive bullshit while you wear your employees into useless, unemployable nubs?

Both ignorance and genius lie around planned obsolescence. Which side are you on?

Additional Points to Consider Before Going Full Cringe on LinkedIn

It will become clear when we adjust to this new reality of sorting, organizing, and displaying information to the public who will survive. There will be no room for thoughts muddled by apprehension or cynicism, which comes from someone with a lifelong ambivalent perception of humanity.

There will be no room for mediocrity. This era of modern meritocracy will regularly acknowledge the duality between democratization and human arrogance with every new release of the generative artificial arms race. The first generation of great “writers” in this Robot Renaissance are self-taught to cobble their thoughts into very powerful devices. There’s a reason why Mark Cuban is telling your kids to get a liberal arts degree, lol.

So, why are these companies, the same ones who require a laundry list of aptitude in difficult platforms and a graduate degree, telling their copywriters they will be fired or not paid for their work not being “human written”? Because this is the first technology that can and will replace them.

On Making A Robot Superpen

I’ve always been ahead by a century, and now I’m two years ahead of the average writer, so add another 20 years in AI time.

Making robots do your work for you is like deconstructing a mosaic of your identity. These tiny little pieces that make you who you are. They are just a shiny accumulation of actions you perform throughout the day. CannManage writers know how to make art from data point shards, and we do this every day. If you agree, you should contact us.

Recently, I found a way to articulate all of this to others:

I am not a writer; I am a conduit.

As I create genAI agents, I have accepted the understanding that I am reverse engineering humanity. I am a machinist, and machinery is artistry.

Because machinery is artistry, I am more creative than the most talented nontechnical writer who isn’t mastering AI. If you use AI to write content, it will be garbage.

If you use AI to help solve problems and automate repetitive tasks, you have a superhuman robot pen. It’s also a spaceship, and if people don’t respect you for that, start figuring out how to use the seatbelts and get out of there before it’s too late.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This Op-Ed was initially written for Cannabis & Tech, who makes frequent calls for unpaid “Op Eds”, but they still requested “human-written” material.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Cannabis Business Times Editorial Director and Co-Founder wanted me to pay them to write something or wait for her golden hands to come down and rescue my “solutions” company, but only when the time is right to discuss artificial intelligence! Then, she forwarded me to the sales department…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Who wants to survive and adapt after an existential crisis first? Your employer/clients, or you?

To the publications, agencies, weed companies, and tech companies looking for good content: WE are the writers you want to encourage and hire.

We are the publication you should support and sponsor.

We’re looking for companies to fund our honest, well-cited snark. Message me.