There is a growing outcry over the use of artificial intelligence in writing.
I understand it.
People worry that AI will flood the world with generic articles, manufactured opinions, and content that sounds thoughtful but has no real thought behind it. They wonder whether they can trust something if they don’t know who, or what, created it.
Those are legitimate concerns.
But I also wonder if some of our reaction is an old fear wearing new clothes: our recurring fear that the latest technology will somehow make human contribution less valuable.
Who really wrote it?
Anthropic recently announced that future Claude models will place an invisible watermark in AI-generated text. It won’t identify the individual who used Claude. It will simply help determine whether Claude was likely involved in creating the material.
Transparency is worthwhile. But the announcement raises a larger question:
What does it mean to say that something was “written by” a person?
Politicians seldom write every word of their speeches. Celebrities and public figures often work with ghostwriters to produce their books. Business leaders rely on communications teams. Most published authors receive substantial help from editors.
We don’t automatically dismiss their ideas because someone helped shape the words.
Instead, we ask, or should ask, whether the final work represents the person’s thinking, experience, beliefs, and intentions.
Perhaps that is the better question to ask about AI-assisted writing too.
Technology has always changed who gets heard
The internet dramatically lowered the cost of publishing. Suddenly, you didn’t need a newspaper column, a book contract, or a television appearance to reach an audience.
Anyone could start a blog.
That democratized communication. It gave millions of people a voice. It also gave us a great deal of mediocre, misleading, and sometimes completely false information.
That happened long before generative AI arrived.
AI will undoubtedly increase the amount of content being produced. Some of it will be valuable. Much of it will be forgettable. Some of it will be deceptive.
But we already faced that problem.
Clay Shirky captured it years ago when he said:
“It's not information overload. It's filter failure.”
Our five senses constantly take in more information than we can consciously process. Our brains filter that flood, identifying what deserves our attention.
We need to become more intentional about applying those same filters to the information we consume.
Who created this?
What evidence supports it?
Does it ring true based on my experience?
Is it trying to inform me, help me, persuade me, or manipulate me?
We cannot control everything other people publish. We can become wiser about what we allow to influence us.
The difference is intention
Human beings have always made things up.
We call some of it fiction. We once called some of it pulp fiction, stories produced quickly from familiar formulas, primarily for entertainment.
But there is an important difference between fiction and an AI hallucination: intention.
A novelist knowingly creates an imagined world. An AI system can present something inaccurate as though it were true.
That is why human judgment still matters.
AI does not remove our responsibility. It increases it.
Yes, I use AI
If you are reading this newsletter, technology was involved long before AI entered the picture.
I didn’t write and mail hundreds of individual letters. I used an email platform to distribute one message to many people. I use the internet, software, video conferencing, and digital tools to reach people I could never meet in the public square outside my home.
AI is another tool in that expanding toolkit.
I use it to help me explore ideas, organize my thinking, question my assumptions, edit my words, and produce material more efficiently.
But I don’t believe it should replace my experience, perspective, or judgment.
The ideas must still be mine.
The final choices must still be mine.
And the responsibility must still be mine.
This is the disclosure I plan to use:
Created with human wisdom + AI. I use AI as a thinking, editing, and production partner, not as a substitute for experience, judgment, or human perspective. I review, revise, and take responsibility for everything published under my name.
AI helped me refine that statement.
But I decided what I wanted it to mean.
That distinction matters.
The future will not belong to people who blindly accept everything AI produces. Nor will it belong to those who refuse to use it because they fear what it represents.
It will belong to people who learn to combine powerful technology with something no machine can independently provide:
Lived experience. Discernment. Values. Wisdom. Responsibility.
Not human or artificial intelligence.
Human wisdom plus AI.
How do you feel when you learn that a writer has used AI? What would make that use feel responsible and trustworthy to you?
