From what I see on social media and among my colleagues, attitudes toward generative AI seem to be all or nothing.
Some writers use AI like it’s a magic content machine. They type in a prompt, grab the output, run it through a humanizer, and click “Send to Editor.” As an editor, I feign ignorance as I roll my eyes, add comments for revision, and click “Send to Writer.” They’re just making more work for themselves.
At the other end, writers reject AI completely. They want nothing to do with it. They see it as an evil force, a threat to real writing and functioning brains, and the end of the world as we know it.
To me, the real question isn’t whether writers should use AI. It’s how to use AI for writing without letting it do the thinking.
There’s a middle way.
An AI Assistant Is a Tool
Using AI doesn’t automatically make someone wrong or lazy or dishonest. Writers have been using tools like spellcheckers, Grammarly, search engines, style guides, and templates for a long time. Add thesauruses and dictionaries, libraries, coffee, and background music. The list goes on.
Tools are good. But when the tool does the thinking, and the writer doesn’t ask questions, that’s a problem:
- What does this article need to say?
- What problem does it address?
- Is it logical and factual?
- Will the intended audience understand it easily?
- Would I proudly put my name on this?
AI can generate a nice-looking article in seconds, but if the writer doesn’t take full control of the tool, if the writer isn’t thinking, it’s not worth publishing.
How AI Can Help Writers
Instead of AI writing for you, ask it to help you see your own thinking more clearly.
For example, AI can help you test an idea before you spend hours researching and writing. Give it your topic, your target audience, and your main idea or argument, and ask: “What questions would a reader have?” or “Is this idea too broad? Should I narrow it down?”
As an assistant, AI can also find gaps in a draft. Not by “fixing” the piece for you, but by pointing out where the logic is shaky, where you need more supporting details or stats, or where a section doesn’t fully address the point.
It can also help with perspective-shifting. Ask the AI to read your draft and provide feedback as someone new to the topic, a skeptical reader, a busy client, a demanding editor, or someone who just needs a quick answer. That doesn’t replace your judgment, but it can reveal problems you missed.
What to ask your editorial assistant
Find research leads: Ask AI for search terms, potential sources, and questions to explore. Treat it as a starting point rather than the actual research.
Reflect your ideas back to you: You know how to do something, but it’s hard to explain in writing. AI can help you clarify your thoughts to identify your main points.
Turn your ideas into an outline: AI can organize your scattered notes, quotes, examples, and experiences by theme or topic.
Evaluate your outline: Ask whether the sections are in logical order, what’s confusing, whether anything overlaps, or if something could be added.
Find weak claims: AI can flag statements that need evidence, examples, statistics, or an expert source.
Catch repeated patterns:
Maybe sentences or paragraphs start the same way. Maybe you repeat transitions, like “however,” “in addition,” or “as such.” Maybe you’ve used words like “important,” “effective,” or “valuable” without explaining why. AI can spot that stuff. You decide what works and what doesn’t.
Test your assumptions: Ask AI to argue against your thesis — your main point — or list counterarguments a reader might raise.
Tone-check for audience: Paste a paragraph or section and ask whether it’s too casual, too academic, too hedged, etc., for the intended reader. AI can give you a useful outside-reader perspective.
Untangle a sentence or paragraph: When you know what you want to say, but you can’t get it to sound right, AI offers alternatives.
Check for assumed knowledge: Ask AI to flag spots where the average reader might not follow a jump in logic or an unexplained term. It’s good for writers who are deep in a topic and forget that what’s obvious to them isn’t obvious to everyone.
What AI Can’t Do for You
AI can help you think through an article, but it can’t care about the end result. That has to come from you.
AI can’t replace your judgment
Call it instinct, a good ear, discernment, or taste, but editorial judgment is the part of you that says, “This sentence is technically fine, but it’s too long.” Or, “Ah, that works.” Or, “No, that’s too much for this audience.” Or, “This is too basic.”
AI can’t make those judgments.
AI can’t guarantee accuracy
An AI assistant can sound absolutely confident even when it makes errors. Sometimes, inaccurate information is obvious, but it’s usually subtle.
AI can’t create your point of view
It can suggest possible angles or slants, but how you approach a topic is totally up to you. AI doesn’t know your previous work or what annoys you, what you love, what you’ve learned the hard way, or what you think your readers need to hear. And it has no viewpoint of its own.
That’s the main reason AI-generated writing looks polished but flat.
A Better Way to Use AI for Writing
Write what you know and the things you notice or question. For client work, do the research, take notes, and write a rough draft. Let AI help you shape it.
Use AI to evaluate your draft
When you’ve decided on your angle, ask AI to help you test the flow or sequence of ideas.
“Here are my sections. Have I missed something?” Or, “Where could a reader get confused?” Or, “Is there any overlap or repetition?”
If you’re like me, one idea leads to another, and then you add a side thought where it doesn’t belong. But an AI assistant can help you sort it out.
Ask AI for questions, not answers
Here’s one of the best ways to use AI for writing. Instead of asking it to review or edit your nearly finished piece, ask, “What questions should I answer?”
That keeps you in charge. AI might respond with:
- Who needs this advice?
- What problem does this promise to solve?
- Which claim(s) need an example?
- Where does the writing slow down?
- What words, sentences, or paragraphs are unnecessary?
- What would make this more useful?
Finish with careful human editing
Before calling it done, read your article out loud or have your word processing app or browser extension read it for you.
Look for spots where the writing is vague, wordy, too formal, or too casual. Check the facts and logic, and ask whether it will help the reader.
If You Use AI to Draft, Don’t Skip the Editing
If you publish or submit AI-generated drafts straight off the press, use extreme caution.
Sure, it looks good to you. It has paragraphs, subheads, and transitions. Perfect grammar and punctuation. It might even have a decent CTA.
But you have to edit it. You have to make it yours. Don’t paste it into a humanizer tool to pass detection or turn it into “human” writing. That’s not human writing.
A humanizer tool rearranges sentence structure, switches words, and makes other changes to reduce the typical AI patterns that detectors look for. But it can’t fix vague concepts, unsupported examples, factual errors, missing context, or a flat tone.
That’s not editing. Real editing asks questions.
Is it specific?
AI drafts sound confident but say little. Watch for sentences like: “Effective communication plays an important role in helping businesses achieve success.”
Right. Of course. But what does “effective communication” mean?
Is this written in my voice or the brand voice?
An AI assistant’s default voice is formal, polite, and neutral. Sometimes that’s what you want, but when it’s gen AI, it loses the reader fast. Human writers have opinions, habits, rhythms, favorite phrases, regional expressions, and slang. One writer says, “these days,” while another says, “nowadays.”
No human voice? That’s what editing is for.
Does the draft match the reader’s need?
A reader wants a quick explanation, but the draft is a broad overview. A beginner needs detailed examples, but the AI draft gives them general advice.
The draft isn’t done just because it looks good on the surface. It has to fit the purpose.
Does anything need checking?
Verify names, dates, statistics, quotes, product details, technical explanations, and any legal, medical, or financial claims. Look up anything that could hurt trust if it’s wrong.
Is the writing alive?
Good writing doesn’t need to sound quirky, confessional, funny, or dramatic. But it does need a point of view and a slant.
AI-generated drafts explain and arrange information nicely, but they don’t often drive a point home. That’s where the writer has to ask, “What is this really trying to say?” And even though it can mimic your writing voice, it’s never the same.
The Writer Still Has to Be the Writer
You have to decide what the piece should say, who you’re talking to, what examples to use, and whether the final draft sounds like you wrote it. That’s the part writers can’t outsource.
Good writing requires judgment and a full understanding of the purpose and the reader. But that doesn’t mean it has to come from the depths of your soul.
Sometimes writing means explaining a return policy, describing a plumbing service, creating a travel guide, or making a technical subject easy to understand. Not every assignment needs personal depth.
But writing still needs a thinking person behind it, and that’s true whether you use AI or not. Rejecting AI completely doesn’t make you a better thinker any more than putting AI in the driver’s seat does.
And whatever you do, please, for the love of readable writing, don’t let a humanizer tool make your editorial decisions.
If you use AI, use it like a tool and write like a person. That’s the middle road. It’s a practical way to use this new tool without giving up the part of writing that actually matters.
The writer still has to be the writer.
Need help editing AI-generated drafts?
If you use AI-generated text for any part of your work, from short paragraphs to your initial draft, the real work starts when you edit. Operation De-Robotify is a practical guide to editing AI-generated content. You’ll learn to spot the patterns, cut the filler, and rewrite until it sounds like you. If you’re already using AI for drafts, editing is your most important step. Don’t skip it!
