Writing = Thinking
24 Feb 2025
In The Ken's First Principle's newsletter, they discussed a very interesting thought --- Is writing, thinking?
“Higher confidence in GenAI’s ability to perform a task is related to less critical thinking effort. When using GenAI tools, the effort invested in critical thinking shifts from information gathering to information verification; from problem-solving to AI response integration; and from task execution to task stewardship. Knowledge workers face new challenges in critical thinking as they incorporate GenAI into their knowledge workflows.”
Paul Graham has an interesting take on this as well - Writes and Write-Nots
Not anymore. AI has blown this world open. Almost all pressure to write has dissipated. You can have AI do it for you, both in school and at work.
The result will be a world divided into writes and write-nots. There will still be some people who can write. Some of us like it. But the middle ground between those who are good at writing and those who can't write at all will disappear. Instead of good writers, ok writers, and people who can't write, there will just be good writers and people who can't write.
I feel the same with coding. Coding is thinking (not the same as writing but it's still thinking about a solution to a problem) and now we have started to outsource this to AI. The pleasure is being sucked out. Yes, it can speed up my work but it's absolutely not satisfying not writing code and knowing that AI is there to finish up your work. The challenge to figure out the logic is no more.
However, if I think about this some more I feel that coding still seems binary and something that can easily be commoditized. With writing you can have your own viewpoint and unique thought.
We'll all see how this goes...