Building my own guillotine
I’ve been messing with generative AI for the past month or so and, over the last few weeks, I’ve finally put together something extremely interesting. But first, some context.
When I first started blogging, I used to write 28 posts a day. We’d get paid by the post and for traffic so the goal was to get as much onto the site as possible, as quickly as possible. This led to me sitting in front of the computer for hours, getting fat and squirrelly. It wasn’t a great life.
In an effort to remedy that, I built something called BlackBox. If you’d like a tour, let me know. It’s quite cool. Essentially, it rewrites press releases and blog posts into aggregated content. You can read the results on Fractal, a new site I spun up primarily to test generative AI and journalism.
Everything on that site, from the headlines to the text to many of the tags, is AI-generated. I’m working on a process to add images and other links to the system soon but it has enabled me to write as many posts as I used to write in 2004 or so but instead of taking me ten hours it takes me 15 minutes.
I’m serious: I can select the stories I want to cover, click a button, and then let the AI do the rest. I send the text and headline over to the blog and it publishes it for me.
Why am I, as a writer, telling you this? Because it’s a new reality for all of us and, in the end, it turns me into a superhuman writer. Using these tools I can create readable, interesting content that is accessible and extremely efficient. Instead of paying a writer to create content, you can pay a writer to curate, to perfect, to polish. The world doesn’t need Paul Bunyan, a dumb galoot who chops down trees by hand. The world needs Ethan Allens, producers of fine wooden furniture.
In short, I’ve turned the process of writing content into something far more comfortable and accessible. I don’t need to get distracted by what I’m going to write but instead, I can focus on how I’m going to write. It’s a fascinating feeling.
I’m happy to walk you through what I’ve built and, remember, no matter how many AIs you hire, a good writer will always be in demand.
sible. This led to me sitting in front of the computer for hours, getting fat and squirrelly. It wasn’t a great life.
In an effort to remedy that, I built something called BlackBox. If you’d like a tour, let me know. It’s quite cool. Essentially, it rewrites press releases and blog posts into aggregated content. You can read the results on Fractal, a new site I spun up primarily to test generative AI and journalism.
Everything on that site, from the headlines to the text to many of the tags, is AI-generated. I’m working on a process to add images and other links to the system soon but it has enabled me to write as many posts as I used to write in 2004 or so but instead of taking me ten hours it takes me 15 minutes.
I’m serious: I can select the stories I want to cover, click a button, and then let the AI do the rest. I send the text and headline over to the blog and it publishes it for me.
Why am I, as a writer, telling you this? Because it’s a new reality for all of us and, in the end, it turns me into a superhuman writer. Using these tools I can create readable, interesting content that is accessible and extremely efficient. Instead of paying a writer to create content, you can pay a writer to curate, to perfect, to polish. The world doesn’t need Paul Bunyan, a dumb galoot who chops down trees by hand. The world needs Ethan Allens, producers of fine wooden furniture.
In short, I’ve turned the process of writing content into something far more comfortable and accessible. I don’t need to get distracted by what I’m going to write but instead, I can focus on how I’m going to write. It’s a fascinating feeling.
I’m happy to walk you through what I’ve built and, remember, no matter how many AIs you hire, a good writer will always be in demand.