"AI-Writing Sucks" Is a Stupid Lie – Here's What Most Writers Ignore
How to write content without losing your soul
I was a total skeptic.
When ChatGPT first rolled out, I got slapped in the face. The content was boring. It read like a textbook.
But AI has dramatically improved since then.
I swear it can write better than 95% of writers on this platform.
And you’d better adapt to what’s coming
You’ve been brainwashed
Most writers don’t know how to use AI.
You’ve been forced to think that AI is garbage.
I can’t blame you. Three reasons for that:
You sacralize writing as hindus sacralize desi cows
You’ve been repelled by those screaming-faces-get-rich-quick-AI-money-garbage
You follow influ-writers who swear by their keyboard (but are completely clueless about AI)
Now, I’m not the most famous writer on the internet. I have a small following. I don’t make millions of dollars and live in Bali. But I’m still making a living that 92% of online writers would dream of.
I don’t do this full-time either. I have a broken back. And I’m only working in the mornings.
I’ve been using AI to write content for the past 18 months. I wrote over 250,000 words with it. But the difference is that I don’t use AI to write garbage.
I’ve created content around AI for:
Courses
Software
And exclusive workshops
And it blows my mind how few writers are still doing the grind manually.
You’ve already lost the writing game
I don’t care how fast you write.
The average writer writes at 65 words a minute. Maybe you’re a unicorn?
Even if you’re writing at 150 words per minute, AI is faster:
It can write a book in a day
It can write a 10,000-word article in 5 minutes
It can write a 5-minute video script in 30 seconds
You can’t compete with a machine.
Most writers are in denial (and the wake-up call is going to be brutal)
The biggest reason writers hate AI writing is they’re afraid it’ll replace them.
Instead of accepting change, they’d rather ignore it. Or act like a kid and hold their breath until they pass out.
It’s a natural human instinct to want to be protected from harm. But it’s also a weakness. AI writing won’t wipe you away if you learn how to use it.
It’ll only kick you in the balls if you refuse to adapt. The choice is yours.
But once you understand that, you can start writing daily and using AI to:
Write first drafts
Come up with headlines people want to click
And even help you speed up writing sales pages and all the other marketing stuff
You’d be stupid to ignore it.
Quit writing p*rn
Writers love to talk about writing.
They love to talk about:
Their templates and their keyboard shortcuts.
How many hours they spent writing a piece.
Their struggles and the demons they face.
How many drafts they wrote.
Their writing streaks.
The problem with this is it’s all about them.
Readers don’t care about how long it took you to write a piece. They want to know what’s in it for them. They want insights, ideas, and your style.
They want to find new solutions to their problems.
I was one of the first to spit on AI
I’m not proud of this.
When AI started to get popular, I was one of the first to jump on Medium and spit on it. I wrote posts about how AI was never going to replace human writing. I even nicknamed it “CrapGPT” in my emails.
But one of my mentors told me to look closer at it. So I put my fragile ego aside and listened. It wasn’t easy. Because I’m a stubborn man.
So I rolled up my sleeves and played around with ChatGPT 3.5. It was stupid. It didn’t follow the instructions. I forgot half of the things. It was like a stubborn donkey.
So I bought the ChatGPT subscription for $20/month. And everything changed.
Slowly, I found a way to train AI on:
My ideas
My philosophy
My points of view
And my writing style
It roughly took me 100 hours of prompting to start getting good results.
ChatGPT and Claude release new models every 6 months. They get 100 times better each time.
Stop thinking that AI = ChatGPT 3.5.
You don’t know how to prompt AI
AI is a machine.
It can’t think. It ain’t smart. It can only work with what you give it.
And as the saying goes, garbage in, garbage out.
Most people don’t know how to prompt AI. And that’s why their output sucks.
The reason is simple. Prompting is a new skill. It’s like learning how to code or design websites. It takes time to get good at it. It took me 100 hours to start getting good at it.
And since most people are impatient, they give up.
But as with every tool, there’s a learning curve. The faster you embrace it, the better you’ll become.
The secret to good AI prompts
Some of you think the answer to great prompts is by looking for shortcuts.
You know what I’m talking about:
The ready-made prompts you bought for $5 on Gumroad.
The ugly 150 Notion prompt cheat sheet you grabbed in a Twitter giveaway.
Please stop it.
Ready-made prompts don’t solve all the problems. In fact, they make you stupid. Because if you don’t understand how they’ve been created, you’ll never improve.
Sure, they can nudge you in the right direction. That’s why in all my courses, I tell my students to enhance the prompts with their ideas and their styles.
Writers who win the game craft their own prompts based on their unique style.
How to make AI write like you
One of the biggest fears writers have is that AI can’t replicate their style.
But they’re wrong.
There are many ways to train AI to write like you. But the easiest way to do this is by feeding the AI with 3 writing samples and telling it to write in the same style. Easy.
Once you do, it’ll be able to:
Write in your style
Use your favorite words
Talk about different topics using your ideas
Stop being a slave to your computer
I’ve been using AI to help me write for 16 months.
One thing I’ve noticed is it frees up more time. You can use the extra time to:
Read more
Write better ideas
Write with less fluff
Write with more clarity
Write more coherent ideas
Take more time off my computer to spark new insights
That’s what makes a good writer.
Most importantly, it helped me become better at writing.
Crank out first drafts in seconds
I’m a big fan of AI for writing first drafts.
For example, I’ll ask it to write an article on a specific idea using my specific style. Then I’ll take the first draft it generates and edit it. I make sure it sounds like me and that it reflects all my ideas.
It’s like having a dedicated ghostwriter for the price of two happy meals. Sweet.
The end result is a piece of content that’s 10X better (and faster) than what I would’ve written without AI.
And it takes me less time so I have more time to do something else.
I like to think about it as an extension of my own fingers. (Like this analogy? I found this analogy with ChatGPT…)
AI can’t write about your perspectives
Within the next 5 years, every text editor will be enhanced with AI.
The only problem with AI is it can’t write about your perspectives.
It can’t write about your unique life experiences. It can’t write about your family, your childhood, your relationship with your parents, or your unique view of the world.
So prompt AI with your:
Perspectives
Unique ideas
Stories
That’s how you make AI feel personal.
Let’s finish here
AI will not replace good writers.
Because good writers are good thinkers. They’re not afraid to be wrong. They’re not afraid to be challenged. They’re not afraid to write something that may not be popular.
But the writers who don’t use AI will get replaced by those who do.
PS: It took me 21 minutes to write this article with AI from start to finish.
PS2: I spent most of the time thinking about what to say in this article, not writing. My fingers are not burning. My back ain’t hurting. And my brain is still fresh. So I can crank out 5 other articles like this today.
Cheers.
PS3: Want a free course on AI writing that ain’t garbage? Go here.
Fantastic. I get it - sometimes it can be intimidating to approach ai and admit that it is a million times faster and smarter than you are lol. Gotta check the ego at the door.
I’m kind of the opposite though, I usually write my draft and then refine and polish with gpt. Could probably be more efficient the other way around, but I like getting my original thoughts down as the initial framework.
Good stuff, I’m a subscriber now :)
AI shouldn’t be a replacement but it sure is helpful. Keep bringing the value Matt.