LLMs Can’t Turn You Into a Writer

In Art & Fear, the authors write:

To all viewers but yourself, what matters is the product, the finished artwork. To you and you alone, what matters is the process, the experience of shaping that artwork. The viewers’ concerns are not your concerns. Their job is whatever it is, to be moved by art, to be entertained by it, whatever.

Your job is to learn to work on your work.

If you use LLMs to write for you, you will end up with writing. You’ll pass your class, get by at work, or get some likes on a post. But you will not become a better writer.

It might even be hard to become a better judge of writing. If you do, it won’t be by reading what LLMs bleat out. It won’t be by reading their summaries of great work. “Your job is to learn to work on your work” and to do that you need to do your own writing and limit your reading to those that do the same.