When it comes to AI, as far as writers are concerned, there are two quite divergent, Dickensian schools of thought, with one camp viewing these as the best of times, and the other viewing it as the worst of times: 

• The optimists embrace AI as a tool that can make them more efficient, effective, and productive; 

• The pessimists view it as an abomination at best, an existential threat at worst, to the point of reacting by laying down their pens and quitting the profession. 

That’s according to the results of the masterful AI and the Writing Professionssurvey and analysis of professional writers just conducted by Gotham Ghostwriters and WOBS. Survey design and analysis were conducted by Josh Bernoff, an author of books about writing with 30 years of survey analysis experience, including the 2024 Business Book ROI Study. 

The survey generated a broad collection of 1,481 complete responses from working writers, including 1,190 writing professionals and 291 fiction authors. Here’s a summary of the key findings: 

• Six out of ten writing professionals use AI tools at least sometimes— 26% use them daily. Thought leadership writers are most likely to use them (84%), while journalists (44%) and copy editors (33%) are least likely. 

• Respondents can be divided into four categories:
  
• • Advanced AI users (use AI daily, 6+ different AI-aided tasks weekly) 
  • Basic (use for 3-5 AI-aided tasks weekly)
    
  • Dabbler (use AI at least occasionally, or perform 1-2 AI-aided tasks weekly)
    
  • Nonuser (Use AI rarely or never, does no tasks with AI weekly)

• Notably, writing professionals report income of:  $120,000 for advanced AI users; $100,000 for basic AI users; $73,000 for nonusers. Bernoff considers this to be a case of correlation vs. causation on the theory that the highest-paid writers are the ones most likely to use AI to increase their productivity.
  

• Contrary to popular opinion, most users don’t employ AI as a digital ghostwriter— Popular uses include finding possible titles, doing searches, and brainstorming; only 7% of writers use it to generate text that's not edited further. So, most respondents don’t use it to churn out “AI slop;” instead, they use it as a productivity tool.

• Writers who use AI think that AI makes them a lot more productive— The more they use the tools, the more they believe this. Across all writing professionals using AI, 43% believe that it makes their writing better, and only 9% believe it makes their writing worse.

• Try it, you’ll like it— The more writers use AI, the less worried they are about it: 57% of advanced AI users think AI is a positive force for the profession, only 3% of non-users agree. 

• The pessimists have been driven to despair by AI:
   
• • 79% are concerned about the erosion of perceived value of human writers;
  • 73% think opportunities for writing professionals will decline in the next five years;
  • A worrisome 45% report reduced demand;
    
  • 40% report reduced income; and,
    
  • Worst of all, 25% are considering giving up their careers due to AI, a result that is consistent regardless of how much those writers use AI. 

• AI is hardly a panacea—It’s more like autopilot on a Tesla—you’re the driver and you need to carefully monitor it based in your lifetime of subject matter expertise. 91% of respondents are worried about hallucinations. 81% are worried about content theft.

To the pessimists, I say “nil desperandum” (don’t despair). View AI as a tool like any other, one that can make you exponentially better, more productive, and typo-free. Embrace it. Write the AI way and see what I mean.

Like any technology, AI opens new opportunities, such as editing AI output. In any event, it’s here to stay. So we need to adapt or die in a professional sense.

Ultimately, writing is simply thought and emotion expressed with visual symbols we call alphabets. I’m optimistic that writing worth reading by real (vs. virtual) writers will prevail in the marketplace of ideas. The only forum I see the rise of the writing machines prevailing in, is marketing applications wherein machines write for machines including SEO (search engine optimization) and GEO (generative engine optimization).

Bernoff is a writer worth reading. I highly recommend that you follow him on LinkedIn. You can download the full survey results here. 

  -- Terry Nugent