But the real issue is people that are not already engaged and knowledgeable about what one another are doing, the key moment when a non-tech needs to discuss a tech need with someone from the tech developer sphere: can they even communicate, and I'm not talking through a salesperson, but actually discuss what one needs and what one provides without resorting to empty jargon? Real communications needs no jargon and does not use jargon, it modifies itself to be understood by the audience, using the audience's terms.
This is critical in the coming decades: learn to communicate, professionally communicate, and I'm not talking about being a media talking head, I'm talking about learning how to speak to anyone anywhere from any stature. It's a critical skill and it is damn well needed now as well as tenfold in our fast approaching future.
(1) Due to computer-based word processing and spelling and grammar correction, writing, and good writing, are much easier now than before personal computers (PC). Indeed, a quip is that the typewriters killed off the ink pens, and the PCs killed off the typewriters; writing got easier and likely better, not less common. People got a lot more practice.
(2) Email, Internet blog posts, and other communications generate more writing. Can we find some data on total US email volume and compare that with old USPS mail volume, letters to the editor of newspapers, etc.?
(3) Now there is a lot of competition for good writing: At Hacker News, bad writing, especially from bad thinking, gets down voted. On Web sites using Disqus, part of getting voted up is clear, short, maybe just one sentence, maybe sarcastic, clever, and humorous, say, succinct, on the point, and maybe fun, and that means in some respects better writing. Maybe Disqus could tell us how Internet blog post writing volume has increased? A lot?
(4) For the media, via the Internet and Web sites, that is now much cheaper to produce than old newspapers, magazines, TV news, and I'd guess that the total of media as writing or as oral reading of what was written is much greater than before. For the future, I anticipate many more words per day, i.e., more writing. Uh, the writing at Hacker News has been going down, up, or staying the same? There is Facebook, X, Reddit, Wikipedia. There are sites for narrow interests. Sounds like a lot more writing.
(5) People have smart phones with them nearly all the time; net, that can mean more communications, and writing is less intrusive on the receiver than in-person voice. From good STEM field communications or just mature socialization, to avoid being misunderstood or offensive, good writing is important.
(6) Sure, now some Google searches result in AI answers, and for some simple questions the AI answers can be a little okay. But, I don't take the AI answers seriously, and the old Google search facility works fine and, also, of high importance, gives the URLs for the search results.
(7) Looking back at my writing, from personal letters to academics, on-line political discussions, etc., I see no way AI could help -- the AI writing is worse, not better.
(8) Since supposedly Taylor Swift is now worth $1.6 billion, there can be increased interest in guitar playing and the claim that such music is based almost entirely on the four chords I, IV, V, and VI. So, my niece wanted to know, and I wrote her an essay, 6,200 words with several YouTube URLs with pictures and sound. For some music with a lot of chords included URL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZsqnHhyub0
Sorry, but for my niece I found nothing nearly as good as what I wrote and believe that AI would be a poor substitute.
(9) The world is changing, especially related to writing, at likely a uniquely high rate, and no AI training data can report today what is new tomorrow and needs good writing.
maybe someone would have even pointed out to him from what activity the peripatetics derived their name. but alas!
“It's not surprising that conventional-minded people would dislike inequality if independent-mindedness is one of the biggest drivers of it. But it's not simply that they don't want anyone to have what they can't. The conventional-minded literally can't imagine what it's like to have novel ideas. So the whole phenomenon of great variation in performance seems unnatural to them, and when they encounter it they assume it must be due to cheating or to some malign external influence.” - https://paulgraham.com/superlinear.html#f12n
There you have it folks. The genius Paul Graham is one of a select few people with the ability to have ideas, something which those who disagree with him are simply incapable of comprehending.
My takeaway: people that know how to write, that have trained that muscle, are better at thinking in a structured way and articulating their thoughts. The number of people that know how to write is declining, at least in part due to the advent of GenAI. The number of people who know how to write is still non zero and is not limited to only Paul Graham.
But there are a lot of others which never liked to write, they do not need this for their job and why should not use this GPT as a tool like the promised land of AI / robots.
Same will happen with cooking: people who like to cook will cook traditionally even after our incoming household robots will be able to.
> Instead of good writers, ok writers, and people who can't write, there will just be good writers and people who can't write.
> writing is thinking. In fact there's a kind of thinking that can only be done by writing
> So a world divided into writes and write-nots is more dangerous than it sounds. It will be a world of thinks and think-nots. I know which half I want to be in, and I bet you do too.
PG states, clear as day, that he expects the world to be divided into people who can think (him) and people who can't (almost everyone else). When I say Paul Graham imagines only he can think, this is hyperbole. I'm sure there's a small group of people with views very similar to his to whom he would also attribute the ability of thought. I am commenting on the clear and undeniable pattern of PG writing that huge swathes of the population are incapable of thinking.
https://xkcd.com/610/ about sums up my views on his attitude.
Tf