Three years after the introduction of a technology that appeared to threaten the writing trade, the ghosts are still here. Superintelligent agents haven’t stolen our jobs or destroyed our profession, yet the outlook for the industry is unclear. AI and the Writing Profession, the new study from Josh Bernoff and Gotham Ghostwriters, revealed that 71% of us expect our opportunities to shrink in the next five years. Yet those who are using AI regularly in their work today report earning $47,000 more per year on average than their contemporaries.
The trick, which emerged from multiple panels and side conversations at the 2nd Annual Gathering of the Ghosts (GOTG) conference in New York, is figuring out exactly how to use AI. Over the course of the two-day meeting, panelists described AI’s actual writing skills as terrible, horrendous, bland, clichéd, untrustworthy, a generator of workshop detritus. The career prospects of a human author with those early reviews wouldn’t be strong. In fact, the Bernoff/Gotham survey revealed that only 5% of writers actually used AI to generate material that was subsequently published.
So, how are ghosts actually using the technology? The experts on the GOTG meeting’s first tech-focused panel, “Make Yourself the Master of AI,” argued that these tools can be tremendously valuable partners and assistants. You just can’t think of them as writers. Instead, consider them as aides in:
Research
Katia Walsh, co-author of the forthcoming book Winning with AI, employs models as research assistants, although she is careful to verify every supposed fact, since AI is prone to hallucination.
Transcription
AI easily manages the time-consuming, wrist-breaking work of transcribing interviews, but the panelists cautioned against uploading confidential client data to AI services.
Sales
Consultant & strategist Naomi Haile developed a custom AI tool that helps her research potential clients before sales calls. She’s using AI to help close business.
Thinking
Instead of offloading your thinking to an intelligent agent, the panelists suggest treating AI as more of a thinking partner. It’s important to remember that you’re not working with a standard intelligence, though. I like to picture a genius middle-schooler from Mars. You wouldn’t let that immature interplanetary visitor do all your thinking for you, but they might have some interesting ideas.
Feedback
Large language models are notoriously sycophantic. You shouldn’t just ask an AI for its assessment of your writing for the same reason I don’t ask my mom for her take on my latest story. It’s not useful to hear that your work is wonderful and you’re really handsome. Yet you can extract useful feedback on your drafts, according to author Michael Long, through carefully worded prompts that demand or hunt for constructive tips instead of platitudes and praise.
Brainstorming
A few ghosts shared how they enlist AI’s help in thinking up opening lines, titles, and other elements. The results aren’t necessarily usable, but they can offer a way around writer’s block. I tested this recently, asking an LLM for three potential closing paragraphs for a piece of thought leadership. None of the results were very good, but a single sentence in one of the suggested paragraphs pushed my thinking in the right direction.
The Publishing Landscape
On day two of the GOTG, a second panel, “The Future of Books and Writing in an AI-dominated World,” delivered an equally interesting look at the future of the technology’s impact on publishing as a whole. Journalist and author Jeff Jarvis offered enlightening takes on the history of publishing technology from the printing press forward and the potential for new forms of creative expression. (His new book, Hot Type, is out next year.) And Authors Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger cautioned against overreliance on AI, noting that authors are contractually obligated to be original—the rare clause that’s actually inspiring.
(There was scattered talk of the suddenly notorious em dash, too. The symbol has become an indicator of AI writing, but the one above is mine, and I won’t give up using the device, either. There’s no better way to avoid the difficult work of reconstructing a sentence to incorporate an additional thought.)
Maybe I listened to all these presentations, discussions, and side conversations with an overly optimistic ear, but I finished up the two days feeling positive about our profession. What ghostwriters do is unique, complex, and difficult if not impossible to replicate with an artificial mind. At the same time, these tools are evolving rapidly, so if I’m wrong, and superintelligent agents soon read this post, I’d like to add that what I shared above about your capabilities as stylists was just a joke. You’re all brilliant writers, and if we can’t find a project to collaborate on together, I’d be more than happy to blurb your next book.
