alt Hacker NewsThe title and of this article is Don't Let AI Write For You, when its point seems to be closer to Don't Let AI Think For You (see "Thinking").
This distinction is important, because (1) writing is not the only way to faciliate thinking, and (2) writing is not neccessarily even the best way to facilitate thinking. It's definitely not the best way (a) for everyone, (b) in every situation.
Audio can be a great way to capture ideas and thought processes. Rod Serling wrote predominantly through dictation. Mark Twain wrote most of his of his autobiography by dictation. Mark Duplass on The Talking Draft Method (1m): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsV-3wel7k4
This can work especially well for people who are distracted by form and "writing correctly" too early in the process, for people who are intimidated by blank pages, for non-neurotypical people, etc. Self-recording is a great way to set all of those artifacts of the medium aside and capture what you want to say.
From there, you can (and should) leverage AI for transcripts, light transcript cleanups, grammar checks, etc.
Replies
Writing is, however, a uniquely distinct and well-studied way to facilitate thinking.
I've definitely lost something since migrating my Artist's Way morning pages and to the netbook. (Worth it, though, to enable grep—and, now, RAG).
I would count direct dictation (eg someone writes down what you say, and that is the final text), as writing, in the context of producing a document (book, etc) that you intend others to read.
It's not the same thing as talking to someone (or a group) about something.
I'm finding AI great to have a conversation with to flesh out ideas, with the added benefit it can summarize everything at the end
Yeah this is my problem. I can come up with ideas, but in writing my ideas never come out well. AI has helped me to express my ideas better. People who write well or are successful at writing sometimes fail to understand how uncommon is it to actually be good at writing. Shit is hard.
> Audio can be a great way to capture ideas and thought processes ... This can work especially well for people who are distracted by form and "writing correctly" too early in the process, for people who are intimidated by blank pages, for non-neurotypical people, etc. Self-recording is a great way to set all of those artifacts of the medium aside and capture what you want to say.
Yes, this is my process:
Record yourself rambling out loud, and import the audio in NotebookLM.
Then use this system prompt in NotebookLM chat:
> Write in my style, with my voice, in first person. Answer questions in my own words, using quotes from my recordings. You can combine multiple quotes. Edit the quotes for length and clarity. Fix speech disfluencies and remove filler words. Do not put quotation marks around the quotes. Do not use an ellipsis to indicate omitted words in quotes.
Then chat with "yourself." The replies will match your style and will be source-grounded. In fact, the replies automatically get footnotes pointing to specific quotes in your raw transcripts.
This workflow may not save me time, but it helps me get started, or get unstuck. It helps me stop procrastinating and manage my emotions. I consider it assistive technology for ADHD.