4 days ago
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It is abundantly clear that AI has taken over massive parts of society. Why? Because it is so easy. Ask AI to write up some topics and claim the content as your own. Did I mention I am an expert at ancient Egyptian mathematics? With five minutes of AI help, I am. Job done.
We see AI slop in our mail, commercials, entertainment, the legal system, government, schools, books, social media, and scams. The question the article below asks is, “Whose fault is this?”
If Chatbots Can Replace Writers, It's Because We Made Writing Replaceable | The Walrus
I think the answer began way back when. Early life was chaotic because all around the world, there were different languages, cultures, and governments. Communication was lacking, and only a precious few scholars could write.
Over time, we improved our society by teaching the masses to read and write. Along the way, language rules were established, education was formalized, and printing presses distributed identical words to the masses. Then computers turbocharged writing quantity, quality, and availability.
With more readers, writers produced an epic amount of excellent material that readers devoured. All was going according to plan until regenerative AI training popped out of nowhere.
AI companies scooped up millions of excellent works and used these precious words as the basis for AI “knowledge,” making life incredibly simple for AI users. “Write a ten-paragraph report on Franklin D. Roosevelt’s political accomplishments.” And bam! A well-written document is created. (Just don’t do a fact check…)
How did AI know how to write that document? Writers have been creating how-to guides, reference manuals, well-written books (examples), and textbooks for many years. Take the Chicago Manual of Style. It is the gold standard for creating a perfect document. Well, all an AI model has to do is follow those CMOS rules, and poof, an excellent document emerges.
Hey, fun side tangent. Did you notice CMOS is not abbreviated CMoS. This means the CMOS is not following the CMOS. Nice.
And how difficult is it for AI to grasp the powerful CMOS concepts? It turns out the CMOS is well written, making it easy for AI to digitize its contents. And if that is not enough, there are thousands of other well-written references to aid AI training. Meaning, AI has a mountain of guides, rules, and tips at its disposal.
So, yes, writers did create the means for AI to become a powerhouse of writing ability. And writers cannot help but further improve AI.
Take the above-linked article. As stated, it is well written and highlights AI’s strengths and weaknesses. By slurping from this free source of information, AI will become better.
This is because the AI companies use their AI to improve themselves. Thus, one of their (the company employees’) questions is, “What problems are users experiencing?” Part of that answer would come from the article.
And even this article provides help for AI companies. I am sure multiple automated data-gathering programs scour popular sites for training material, and this text was guzzled in.
Are writers really at fault? After all, we did not spend all this effort creating perfect document gems for some soulless computer to swallow up. And there is a “strong” protection system in place called copyrights. Some writers are even fighting back with lawsuits!
Yeah… AI companies legally/illegally blew right past that defense architecture in less than a millisecond. So, it is not the writer’s fault; it is the evil AI companies. Right?
I took some noodle time to determine if I believed this. I think part of the answer comes from the CMOS. The first edition came out in 1906. What were the authors thinking when they wrote it? “We want to create the absolute best reference book for authors and editors.” And they were successful.
Who were they writing the CMOS for? Any person who desired to know the gold standard of writing. Subsequently, for every revision, the CMOS was improved with reader feedback, investigations, discussions, literature analysis, and new ideas.
The thing is that each reader of the CMOS is a single person. Meaning, 100 people cannot read one book at the same time. AI is a vastly different beast. Rules/techniques slurped up from a single copy of the CMOS are in use by over 1000 computers spread across 100 AI companies. The CMOS authors in 1906 could not have envisioned this possibility.
Yet writers are now fully aware of AI, which leads to the question: Why write this very article knowing that I am helping AI? The answer is simple: I write because I enjoy writing. And how do I feel about helping AI? I cannot stop AI from taking my words, but it would be wonderful if AI gave me a little credit.
“Write a ten-paragraph report on Franklin D. Roosevelt’s political accomplishments.”
“No problem. But I have to inform you about something first. This great author, Bill Conrad, did a lot of research on Mr. Roosevelt, and the information I am providing is, in part, based on Bill’s excellent work.”
I suppose that would be nice. After all, doing so would be fair and ethical. Of course, that will never happen.
You’re the best -Bill
June 10, 2026
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Interviewing Immortality. A dramatic first-person psychological thriller that weaves a tale of intrigue, suspense, and self-confrontation.
Pushed to the Edge of Survival. A drama, romance, and science fiction story about two unlikely people surviving a shipwreck and living with the consequences.
Cable Ties. A slow-burning political thriller that reflects the realities of modern intelligence, law enforcement, department cooperation, and international politics.
Saving Immortality. Continuing in the first-person psychological thriller genre, James Kimble searches for his former captor to answer his life’s questions.
Pushed to the Edge of Existence. Just when Kim, Gabe, and Emma’s lives start returning to normal, a mysterious government organization orders them to use their telepathic abilities, and then they travel to an alien planet.
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