As an early adopter of ChatGPT, I’ve used the AI tool considerably. In the beginning it was fantastic to have something who could be anything you told it to be – a copywriter, a top-notch marketing executive, it could even adopt personas and tell you how a given audience would feel about a particular blog post. The excitement at having a virtual editing team at your disposal was giddying. This was something out of my league that was suddenly in reach. It was hard not to see how this would change the world. In many ways it was like digital clay being sculpted into whatever desire or need you had – often not perfect but, in most cases, good enough. However, just like the old myths about clay figures brought to life to serve their masters, there would be a catch – one that would ultimately cause me to pause writing for a year.
In the beginning
It started simply enough. I’d copy and paste my drafts into ChatGPT and fawn over the babble of characters that would cascade down the screen like something out of The Matrix. Each bullet point bestowed with sage advice from a seasoned virtual copywriter… yes, I’d nailed the prompts! Sometimes it would suggest something duff, but generally it was useful. I’d then spend half an hour reviewing the edits and then try again.
Stuck in an AI Loop
With my newly edited blog post, I’d paste it in again, eager to get the thumbs up or the green light that it was ready. The only thing was, it produced just as many points as the last prompt – only now they were completely new issues. Prose that apparently needed reworking. Phrasing that should flow better. Suddenly it raised new angles or perspectives I hadn’t even considered. I soon found myself drowning in decisions. Half an hour quickly became an hour or more with each iteration.
Decisions decisions…
To be honest, it wasn’t the decisions themselves that were the problem, but the sheer quantity of decisions that had to be made while editing a single long-form blog post. Each time ChatGPT would produce as many suggestions as the previous pass. Each time I’d have to carefully consider every one of them. And on top of that, I had to judge how sensible the suggestions even were – sometimes they were far too Californian, peppy and optimistic for an English guy writing about tech. So I’d end up feeding it examples of my previous work and gently coaxing it back towards my language and tone. Sometimes the suggestions were too woolly, other times they condensed points I’d laboured over to deliver a particular emotional impact into a blunt, sometimes muted point. Then suddenly it would forget what I’d told it previously and randomly rewrite something.
It was exhausting… like trying to move a bowling ball by blowing on it a thousand times! Worst of all, I’d end up with headaches from analysing so many micro-decisions. Apparently you only have so much glucose to make decisions with and ChatGPT was using mine all up, leaving me in the same indecision paralysis you get from a long, intense shopping trip.
So what happened?
I would eventually get the perfect blog post I was striving for – but it would take entire days. At one point it took three solid days just to get a single post into a state I felt was ready. I did this for quite a few posts and, yes, it really improved my writing… but at what cost? Eventually I realised I didn’t have the time or the patience to spend half a week on one article. Ironically, the very tool I thought would save me hours and make me hyper-productive ended up draining my motivation, and burning me out. It pushed me away from writing for over a year.
The Future without AI
So now I’m trying an AI writing detox – keeping the editing to a minimum and doing it the old-fashioned way. You’ll get rougher blog posts from me, but at least you’ll actually get something to read a bit more often! Maybe, just maybe, I’ve explained a modern AI paradox too, the kind where machines that are supposed to think for you actually make you think harder than ever. One where a tool designed to free us creatively actually becomes a mental cage – in many ways, not unlike The Matrix itself.