Chapter 1

Recognizing the Need for Writer Intelligence (WI)

IN THIS CHAPTER

Realizing that AI is already part of your life

Discovering how AI assists business writers

Understanding that AI helps, not replaces, writers

Identifying writing fields that will continue to thrive

Exploring the limitations of AI

We’re hearing so much about artificial intelligence (AI) and all its wonders, yet we don’t hear nearly enough about writer intelligence (WI). Remember that without human intelligence there would be no artificial intelligence. Humans would never create anything to replace themselves, only to make life easier. That’s what AI does for business writers; it makes writing easier.

As business writers, it’s crucial to stay informed about the latest advancements in AI writing technology and use it responsibly. Striking a balance between human creativity and technological innovation will be pivotal for the success of writers and writing. Never underestimate the lasting significance of genuine human communication — it’s paramount. Business writers stand to gain significantly by learning about AI and integrating it into their work to enhance the creative process and improve efficiency. This chapter delves into how writers can benefit from using AI as a writing assistant.

AI is Already Part of Your Everyday Life

If you think you’re a newcomer to AI, think again. Apple’s Siri and Google’s Alexa are powered by AI. They rely on natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning. Every day most of us send and receive emails, many powered by AI (find out more about using AI in your own emails in Chapter 10). And all the annoying pop-up ads we see while searching the Internet are AI enabled. They’re based on our search history that’s personalized with the goal of getting items in front of us via algorithms and to sell us goods and services.

GPS uses AI for route optimization, historical data, and real-time traffic updates such as congestion and road closures, as well as suggest workarounds to avoid gridlock. If you scan checks with your phone to make deposits, AI is at work behind the scenes. From drug discovery to clinical decision support, AI is transforming the way the medical profession approaches healthcare. AI is used in self-driving cars, trucks, and buses, as well as smart home devices such as thermostats, lighting systems, and security systems. And when we kick back to relax in the evening, many of us turn to streaming services. These services use AI to recommend programming we may like based on our past viewing history.

AI is fast becoming the cornerstone of innovation. Yet AI isn’t new. It dates back to the 1950s when Alan Turing published “Computer Machinery and Intelligence” in the academic journal Mind, which proposed a test of machine intelligence called The Imitation Game. However, it wasn’t until 2022 when AI was brought into the mainstream through familiarity with OpenAI’s application ChatGPT (Generative Pre-Training Transformer). By incorporating true AI into live chat features, businesses are merging human intelligence with machine intelligence.

Using AI to Assist WI

As you journey through this book, you’ll gain familiarity with AI tools that can be applied to a wide array of business writing scenarios. Whether you’re new to AI and are simply exploring its capabilities, you’re interested in using a simple chatbot, or you’re prepared to embrace comprehensive AI tools, this book equips you with the knowledge and skills you need for each stage of your journey.

As you navigate the chapters of this book, a recurring theme emerges: the importance of generating precise prompts. From a general discussion in Chapter 23 to detailed applications in Parts 3, 4, and 5, the significance of this artistry is underscored. Embracing the art of prompt generation becomes paramount, for it’s through these meticulously selected words that dynamic documents come to life, ideas flourish, and minds expand.

AI can assist you with some of the writing you normally do, but there are other aspects of business writing that only humans can do. AI excels at chopping through writer’s block, preparing outlines and drafts, summarizing topics, analyzing data, presenting numbers and statistics, maintaining consistency in writing style, proofreading and editing, and optimizing writing for search engine optimization (SEO). AI tools will have a big impact on the future of writers, but here’s why WI will never disappear.

Business writing goes beyond merely assembling words. It requires a deep understanding of human emotions, strategic insights, and perspectives. This is where human writers have a unique advantage. Only humans have the innate ability to create personal connections with readers by sharing relatable stories, personal experiences, nuanced details, and thought-provoking analogies — something that AI technology is incapable of. Additionally, AI lacks the ability to differentiate between emotionally impactful phrases and mundane ones. Readers often rely on their instincts, desires, emotions, and morals when forming judgments, aspects that are detached from logic and analytics.

Another limitation of AI is the absence of original insights. AI can only summarize and reproduce information from existing databases. It can’t generate its own thoughts on a subject. Furthermore, AI has limited capabilities to infer the consequences of a particular action. Only human writers possess the higher-level causal thinking required to analyze why things happened and address hypothetical “what if” scenarios.

If you strive to be a thought-leader in your industry (an authority whose innovative ideas and insights influence and guide others), it’s WI that will get you there, not AI. Only human writers have the ability to provide original insights and opinions on the most crucial topics — topics that are beyond the current grasp of AI technology.

Enhancing Business Writing, Not Replacing Writers

Who will survive? Who will thrive? Here are my WI thoughts on why business writers will not only survive, but thrive, and why we can’t be replaced by AI:

• AI writing is robotic. To get a reader’s attention, good writers bring text to life with perspective and creativity as we’ve done since we first showed an ability to put words together.
• Computers haven’t lived our life or the life of the reader. So they can’t humanize writing with examples and stories to enliven a document and drive key points home.
• While lightheartedness in business writing is tricky, it’s where we can separate ourselves from machines. The right remark at the right time can help make a point in a way AI can’t.
• Emotional intelligence is necessary to understand and convey emotions effectively. We can tap into the intricacies of human experience, capturing the nuances of feelings and experiences in our writing.
• AI can mimic human writing, understand complex queries, deliver nuanced responses, and generate text resembling human style. However, only humans can adapt writing style, tone, and voice for different genres, audiences, and purposes, and make revisions and improvements.
• Humans possess moral reasoning and ethical judgment, which allows us to make conscious decisions about what we write and how we present information.

I asked my AI sidekick You.com why it can never replace writers. Figure 1-1 shows what it “humbly” wrote:

Writing Fields that Will Thrive, Not Just Survive

AI is not a replacement for human creativity, but rather a tool to augment and inspire the business writing process. By providing writers with tools to automate tasks such as research and data analysis writers can spend more time focusing on the creative aspects. So before you start studying for that real estate license, know that AI isn’t going to replace good business writers who keep their skills current.

No one can predict with certainty what AI might look like in the future, but AI is far from being able to reach the standards set by human writers. Tools such as ChatGPT, Grammarly, Jasper, Copilot (formerly Bing), You.com, and a...