Why human writing and art will always flourish
Are writers the stagecoach drivers of the automobile era? Why would someone write in a world of large language models that can pump out passable prose far quicker than humans? How do us cavemen with quills compete with AI writing?
When I first witnessed ChatGPT in 2022 I overreacted. It was probably because I was consuming too many tech bro podcasts at the time. But I was convinced that knowledge workers — like us lawyers — were doomed. And my love and aspiration of ever “making it” as a writer seemed like aspiring to be a Renaissance painter in a world of digital photography.
Eventually, however, I came to understand that photography didn’t replace painting. But it did change it. Prior to photography’s invention in the early 19th century, painting’s value was largely based on its ability to depict reality. Suddenly, artists were faced with a technology that could capture scenes and likenesses more quickly, accurately, and cheaply than any painter.
But did painters drop their brushes en masse? Did the craft die? While some certainly viewed photography as a death sentence for their work — as many painters had focused on realistic representations like portraits and landscapes — others embraced photography as a tool. They used photographs as…