When an Economist writer pitted his own satirical column against one generated by AI, several colleagues mistakenly identified the AI's version as his. They found the AI's writing more coherent and, in some cases, more representative of his style, highlighting AI's shocking proficiency in creative and nuanced tasks.
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Even in a world where AI can produce high-quality outputs like writing instantly, the process of doing the work remains critical for human learning. Tyler Cowen argues that the act of writing is a valuable cognitive process that should not be abandoned, regardless of technological advances.
AI struggles with true creativity because it's designed to optimize for correctness, like proper grammar. Humans, in contrast, optimize for meaning and emotional resonance. This is why ChatGPT would not have generated Apple's iconic "Think Different" slogan—it breaks grammatical rules to create a more powerful idea. Over-reliance on AI risks losing an authentic, human voice.
In the age of AI, the new standard for value is the "GPT Test." If a person's public statements, writing, or ideas could have been generated by a large language model, they will fail to stand out. This places an immense premium on true originality, deep insight, and an authentic voice—the very things AI struggles to replicate.
Journalist Casey Newton uses AI tools not to write his columns, but to fact-check them after they're written. He finds that feeding his completed text into an LLM is a surprisingly effective way to catch factual errors, a significant improvement in model capability over the past year.
Current AI models often provide long-winded, overly nuanced answers, a stark contrast to the confident brevity of human experts. This stylistic difference, not factual accuracy, is now the easiest way to distinguish AI from a human in conversation, suggesting a new dimension to the Turing test focused on communication style.
Historically, well-structured writing served as a reliable signal that the author had invested time in research and deep thinking. Economist Bernd Hobart notes that because AI can generate coherent text without underlying comprehension, this signal is lost. This forces us to find new, more reliable ways to assess a person's actual knowledge and wisdom.
The test intentionally used a simple, conversational prompt one might give a colleague ("our blog is not good...make it better"). The models' varying success reveals that a key differentiator is the ability to interpret high-level intent and independently research best practices, rather than requiring meticulously detailed instructions.
Earlier AI models would praise any writing given to them. A breakthrough occurred when the Spiral team found Claude 4 Opus could reliably judge writing quality, even its own. This capability enables building AI products with built-in feedback loops for self-improvement and developing taste.
Claude's proficiency in writing is not accidental. Its development, backed by Amazon's Jeff Bezos (who owns The Washington Post), involved training on high-quality journalistic and literary sources. This strategic use of superior training data gives it a distinct advantage in crafting persuasive prose.
Contrary to fears that AI averages out creativity, it can act as a partner to challenge a writer's habitual thinking, suggest alternative phrasings, and identify blind spots, ultimately leading to more original output.
