Can You Rewrite the Rewrite we Rewrote with AI?

Here's a quick glimpse of my 18-month arc with AI as a professional writer:

(April 2023): "Dave, are you worried about AI taking away your writing work?" "We'll see what happens."

(November 2024): "Dave, are you available to help rewrite the copy we wrote and rewrote using AI? It reads like a Wikipedia page...but doesn't have our brand voice. There's no emotion to it." "Sure."

It's true. I started hearing "are you worried?" questions in the spring of '23, and have been getting "can you help rewrite" questions for the last couple of months.

For the record, I have no issue with AI. I use it now and then when I'm editing. I've even asked my friendly neighborhood ChatGPT to help generate writing prompts. Even as I type this out, LinkedIn is offering me a chance to "rewrite with AI" (the caveat: I have to upgrade to premium).

No thanks, LinkedIn, but I appreciate the offer.

I've been a professional writer for 25 years, and a human for almost 50 years. If there's anything I've figured out across the spectrum of this existence, it's this: keep looking for the emotional tug in your words. It doesn't matter if you're writing for tech, healthcare, consumer goods...you name it. In the end, you're writing for humans.

What is the emotional tug? It's the thing that goes beyond story...the gooey element...the beating heart. It could live in the sound of your words...or the voice...or an image you imbed to help create a connection with readers.

AI writing will give you what you ask for within the parameters you set. A human will walk with you into the messy terrain where something you don't expect to find is waiting. My favorite part of what I do: going into the darkness with people.

And so, after 18 months of working with AI, and now being asked to revise AI writing, my thesis is this: until AI morphs into AEI (artificial emotional intelligence...or maybe AEQ), humans who write for humans will have plenty of opportunities to share words.

PS: The picture attached to this post (and pasted below) is something the AI generated for me. My prompt: show me a glimpse of the end of the world.