The AI writing dump

Notion is the latest company to offer an AI writing tool.

At first glance, the demo looks slick, even remarkable.

But thinking about it, this shows just how unremarkable most content actually is. The vast majority of press releases, blog posts and notes are formulaic and unimaginative.

It’s precisely this sort of content that is making internet search harder to use, and I’ve been saying we’re in the era of peak Google for awhile. Any vaguely popular search term is flooded with spammy results.

Putting the words out there is the least difficult part of writing. What’s truly hard is researching, synthesizing different strands of thoughts, making connections between seemingly unrelated lines of thinking, and breaking complex ideas down into something understandable. There are some AI tools that help with this, but I suspect this is going to be one of the last human domains to fall to automation.

For now, it looks like these AI writing tools will lead to more devaluation of the craft of writing and disciplines such as information architecture.