What’s more important? To sound like you or the version of you that you think people want to see?
This is an age old question if you think about it. We’ve always had to choose this. For example, when you want to impress a girl do you think “let me be 100% me” or do you think, “ok let me show parts of me I think she’ll like and slowly show the others.” For the ladies, knowing where you’re going or what type of guy you’re going to meet dictates which outfit and look you put on. And by look I mean wearing heavy makeup, jewelry, etc., or subtle makeup, little to no jewelry, etc.
Now I know what you’re thinking, “ok what does this have to do with anything?” Let me bring it full circle, how many of us use AI so our writing, words, scripts, etc. sound and look good for the audience? I’ll be honest and say I did this with good intentions. I have a college degree and I enjoy writing. In my brain that meant I need to look and sound a certain way. I wanted to portray myself as an educated writer, forgetting that my voice and how I think is more important than how I “should” sound.
But now the why. Why I used AI for my writing. I justified it with, “I wrote everything myself, it’s just finessing it to the way I would ideally like to write and sound.” And is that wrong? To want to write and sound in a way that isn’t natural to me? And is it wrong to use a tool to help me achieve that? I don’t know.
There’s something similar people do but aren’t up in arms about like they are with AI. Photography. I’ve been a photographer for about 13 years. The reason I picked it up was because I can’t draw and I wanted to create art, so this was the next best thing. And this is common, if you ask a photographer why they started, a majority will say because they couldn’t draw and wanted to make art.
What I’m about to say is an unpopular opinion, and again this is coming from someone who did photography for 13 years, photography isn’t truly all that difficult. You learn about lighting, exposure, f-stop, and ISO. After that you push a button and the camera does the rest of the work. Now if you’re a photographer I know what you’re thinking, “But Malik, I have to learn lighting, composition, how to arrange the subject, etc.” Yes, but so does a painter. They have to arrange their subjects, compose the shot, and see where the lighting is coming from, except they take hours to create an image while photography does the work with the push of a button. Why is it ok for photographers to have a camera do the majority of the work but a writer can’t use AI to shape and refine a piece they wrote?
I think here’s the line and what we can do about it. To remember to use it as a tool. And I know everyone preaches this but doesn’t explain it, so here is my best take. Write the piece yourself first and then put it into AI to make it sound how you want. I think that’s fair. It’s using it as a tool. Telling AI to write you a piece about storytelling and then copying, pasting, and posting it is what most people have an issue with. It’s the equivalent of buying a microwave dinner, nuking it, and then saying this is a dish I put together. Using it as a tool is you gathering the ingredients and using the stove and pans to put it together. That’s using the kitchen tools. So similarly goes with your writing. Write the thing yourself at least and have AI put it in a voice you want.
But the real cheat code, as the kiddos say, is writing it the way you think and speak and just letting that out. That’s what most people truly want nowadays. It’s the equivalent of watching a guy on the street improvising with his guitar as opposed to a pianist playing Mozart perfectly. Yes it’s good, but playing the notes too perfectly is soulless. That’s why we love the raspy voices with character and texture in them. You writing and telling your stories from the dome to the page will speak more volumes than feeding your thoughts to the machine and it spitting out something that doesn’t sound like you.
As for me and what I’m doing now to avoid this. I’m still using Claude, which I think is currently the best AI when it comes to writing, to check my grammar, punctuation, and spelling. And I ask it for suggestions on how to make my writing better. But I’m reading more books on writing. I have The Well Spoken Thesaurus to help me learn and use better words, to get me to the point where I can grow my writing and still sound like 100% me.
Here’s a link to the books I’ve read and currently reading about writing if you want to work on your writing with me. This is an affiliate link.
My reading list
