Human vs AI creativity? The Wisdom of Writers Shuts Me Up

The writers' room has a new rule: AI is contraband. One writer chose quiet instead of sides. Then hits send anyway. Same as always. What are you protecting?

Feb 27, 2026

Writers don’t have moats, they have doubts. Writing with AI is one of them.

Because support AI or attack AI, either way you must take a side, and I don’t take sides. My audience does and lacking a side buried my work.

I choose the quiet middle, as writers working with AI are taboo. You’re giving in, you’re giving up, and what writer in their right mind (yeah, untangle that one) would do that?

I’ve been writing since my early days crafting releases for concerts at the U. of Colorado, including the Rolling Stones and the Who in stadium shows. I released my TST Zine when I left college, writing up engineering proposals for bridges and roads as my side hustle.

My Mac Plus, some Floppy Disks, and writing led me to run the San Francisco Drug Test Hotline for a year….that was an experience.

All my work comes from my writing, businesses I’ve founded to software I helped invent with my words, not code. I get why writers are upset and triggered by AI. And the skilled writers posting they would never use AI? It’s virtue signaling, because those who use GenAI to write usually don’t consider themselves writers. Communicating with written words is a skill deeply lacking today.

Bridging that gap is what I’m used to, but with AI we’re building gaps that do not bridge.

AI has its own, you’re one of us or you’re not sides. Tech vs. Creators, New Way vs. Old Way, whatever opposing framework fits, use it. The point isn’t to get to a better answer, it’s to find ways to define the other side with questions that have no answers.

Meanwhile, we choose the predictions and research that fits our narrative and push it as truth and all against it as, bias. Ideas and identity, framed as true and false.

And in some ways it makes me silent, quiet as discussing with someone trying to prove an opinion isn’t discussion, it’s debate. Endless debate on a future that no one knows. You know the answer before you post the question, and that’s sort of why you do it.

I see it in the 20 percent dislikes per video I released. Pods speaking positively about AI got the creatives and writers complaining that AI is ruining everything, and people like me are part of the problem. Or I’d side with creatives who owns their work, and the tech side would become the 20 percent disliking the video.

Reactions and feedback are good, but when the 20 percent changes all the time, they don’t come back. It’s not building, it’s stuck between two sides. I understand why taking one side or the other is as much business choice as content choice.

I chose nuance, they didn’t follow. It was missing something for them. In being nuanced I encouraged more mud slinging than debate, the kind of instant reaction you find on social. Listen, read, consider? No, react.

Video keeps dominating the short attention spans. When I put down the camera and returned to words, connections began. Part of creating is finding what connects with your audience, and for all the critiques writers have given my work, I learn. And I found I was missing just writing.

And that shift brought me back to words. Experimenting with AI while working on my writing. Prompting is also communicating, not just a roulette wheel. It’s not like a human audience, and it does have ways to help it learn your style.

When you learn how an intelligence thinks, it’s like learning a language. Once you speak it, going back to the old language doesn’t make sense. Being able to plug into intelligence of this level doesn’t have to mean surrender. Maybe it’s more discovery.

Even today, I imagine many writers are working with AI and don’t talk about it, or let people know. They hide it. Either that or follow the rules of the anti AI crowd.

“Writers against AI, we can defeat it!”

The shame of using AI. AI stole our content. AI is ruining our careers. What real writer would use AI?

Like if you use AI, if you take your skills and rely on AI, you’re done.

What “real” writer would do that?

I’m writing this with the help of Claude, because like many introverted writers I’m on my own, and I like it that way. Being able to get feedback on my writing, ideas for social media posts, there’s a whole world of things AI helps me do as a writer, mostly giving me more time to write.

Being asked to explain that it’s really me writing this is part of the shaming. I must be clear this is human, because AI is considered cheating, dirty, and a shortcut to some influencers and writers.

They both humanize AI into a caricature, especially ones that flatly refuse and call whatever comes out, AI Slop.

Now being a writer, that’s identity. It’s their journey, the experiences and the things that don’t work, the hero’s journey and the struggle back to normal we all go through. The percentage who get recognized, or paid, is extremely small.

If AI can make up these stories in minutes, what happens to the writers?Maybe they keep experiencing, personalizing, and opening up in ways that aren’t probable. Finding the words, the voice, and the flow code can’t. They insist using AI erodes your writing skill, and I agree with that one.

If you don’t write, you’ll forget how to write. If you’re starting out, using AI to help you write and not writing for you, that’s a practice, maybe a craft if you get good.

Instead of angst, create a world of imagination with AI but not pretending it’s human. Or turning it into a competitor so you can justify never using it.

I’ve trained it to edit and being adversarial (challenging) with my work, not to give me a ribbon every time I burp out some words. Trained it to understand my voice and through learning with it, am on my 4^th voice shift in 3 years.

Privately. Carefully. Like carrying something valuable through a room full of people who’ve decided it’s contraband. Make sure the words come from you, and not from your prompts.

Using AI changes the way we work. While it can write, it can’t feel. That’s where writers come in, and should be excited by the average work coming out. It makes their original voices that much more valuable.

The AI industry acts like we should all follow the future they outline. Because AI folks love to talk about replacing, and destroying, people. AI First. And wonder why the resistance, the anger, and the distrust spreads. The narrative needs work, and it won’t just come from engineers. It has to come from all of us.

Why isn’t AI taking over? Because it’s not about people, like writers.

And I protect my wildness like a tameless gift. I feel that twinge of Imposter Syndrome calling myself a writer sometimes. Doubt is part of the gift.

Real photo of Shea and me in the Yolla Bollys

I remember when I sent my first MacPlus file deep over a backpack mobile phone in the foothills of the Yolla Bolly Mountains, 50 miles away from any sort of town.

Hit send, and they got it. Hit send, and I got paid for my writing. Freeing me to live off the grid, and turn off the generator. To be myself, a writer, not famous and thriving. All I needed was my MacPlus.

Here I am many years later, and the words are beginning to flow, I’m returning, in a way because I gave myself permission to ask AI for help. Not to write for me, to be with me along the creative way. Steer me from my old patterns and develop new voices as I learn how I communicate, and understanding how it sounds to others. Learning how I think and feel by watching how I write; that's the wildness I didn't expect.

What’s the wildness you’re protecting: from AI, with AI, or in spite of everything?

Resources

America Isn’t Ready for What AI Will Do to Jobs

Will artificial intelligence make human workers obsolete?

Companies Are Laying Off Workers Because of AI’s Potential—Not Its Performance

AI paradoxes: 5 contradictions to watch in 2026 and why AI’s future isn’t straightforward

How long until AI takes your job?

If AI makes human labor obsolete, who decides who gets to eat?

AI isn’t replacing that many jobs — yet

How will Artificial Intelligence Affect Jobs 2026-2030

When Will AI Affect US Productivity Growth?

A.I. Isn’t Coming for Every White-Collar Job. At Least Not Yet.