Leading

Slow Writing in the Age of AI

Published on May 14

AI can draft a passable post in nine seconds. But the magic is what happens after.

I don't ship it. I rewrite it, line by line. I check every assumption. I cut the 30–50% that sounds smart but isn't load-bearing. I sit with the argument until it feels true — like something I can stand behind. By the end, almost none of the original draft survives. And that's the point.

Thomas Mann once wrote that "a writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people." That hits differently now. AI made the words easy. The difficult part is something you have to choose.

The speed of content generation obscures something important. Output is a small fraction of what makes writing so valuable. The value is in the process of crafting and refining it. Writing slowly is still the surest way to find out what you actually believe.

In a sea of AI-generated content, craft still stands out. Delegate that work at your own peril.