The Temperamental Writer’s Two Suggestions and One Rule for Using Generative AI

Don’t let that smiling face fool you.

Behind that smiling face beats the heart of an opinionated, crotchety, temperamental writer.

With an overinflated ego and pride in my own writing.

So you can imagine…

• how this temperamental writer would feel if someone came up and said, “Hey, I wrote this for you.”
• how this temperamental writer would feel if someone came up and said, “Hey, I had ChatGPT write this for you.”

Yeah, I’m an opinionated, crotchety, and temperamental writer.

So how do you think that I feel about ChatGPT, Bard, and other generative AI text writing tools?

Actually, I love them. (Even when they generate “code snippets” instead of text.)

But the secret is in knowing how to use these tools.

Bredemarket’s 2 suggestions and one rule for using generative AI

So unless someone such as an employer or a consulting client requires that I do things differently, here are three ways that I use generative AI tools to assist me in my writing. You may want to consider these yourself.

Bredemarket Suggestion 1: A human should always write the first draft

Yes, it’s quicker to feed a prompt to a bot and get a draft. And maybe with a few iterative prompts you can get a draft in five minutes.

And people will soon expect five-minute responses. I predicted it:

Now I consider myself capable of cranking out a draft relatively quickly, but even my fastest work takes a lot longer than five minutes to write.

“Who cares, John? No one is demanding a five minute turnaround.”

Not yet.

Because it was never possible before (unless you had proposal automation software, but even that couldn’t create NEW text).

What happens to us writers when a five-minute turnaround becomes the norm?

From https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jbredehoft_generativeai-activity-7065836499702861824-X8PO/

If I create the first draft the old-fashioned way, it obviously takes a lot longer than five minutes…even if I don’t “sleep on it.”

But the entire draft-writing process is also a lot more iterative. As I wrote this post I went back and forth throughout the text, tweaking things. For example, in the first draft alone the the three rules became three suggestions, then two suggestions and one rule. And there were many other tweaks along the way, including the insertion of part of my two-week old LinkedIn post.

It took a lot longer, but I ended up with a much better first draft. And a much better final product.

Bredemarket Suggestion 2: Only feed bits to the generative AI tool

The second rule that I follow is that after I write the first draft, I don’t dump the whole thing into a generative AI tool and request a rewrite of the entire block of text.

Instead I dump little bits and pieces into the tool, perhaps something as short as a sentence or two. I want my key sentences to pop. I’ll use generative AI to polish them until they shine.

But always check the results. HubSpot flagged one AI-generated email title as “spammy.”

Bredemarket Rule: Don’t share confidential information with the tool

This one isn’t a suggestion. It’s a rule.

Remember the “Hey, I had ChatGPT write this for you” example that I cited above? That actually happened to me. And I don’t know what the person fed as a prompt to ChatGPT, since I only saw the end result, a block of text that included information that was, at the time, confidential.

Feeding confidential information to a generative AI tool can get you into real trouble.

• Let’s say that Bredemarket is developing a new writing service, the “Bredemarket 288 Tweet Writing Service.” (I’m not. It’s not economically feasible. But bear with me.)
• Now this is obviously an extremely valuable trade secret.
• If someone scouring generative AI data found out about this offering and beat me to the punch, I would lose $45 billion. Or maybe less.

So how should I have a generative AI tool edit text about my new service?

1. First, don’t use a Bredemarket account to submit the prompt. Even if I follow all the obfuscation steps that I am about to list below, the mere fact that the prompt was associated with a Bredemarket account links Bredemarket to the data.
2. Second, if the word “Bredemarket” appears in the prompt, change it to something else. Like my standby WidgetCo, or maybe Wildebeest Inc.
3. Third, obfuscate other parts of the prompt. Perhaps change 288 (a number closely associated with modern-day Twitter) to something else, and maybe change other things also.

To show how this is done, here’s something I just submitted to a well-known generative AI tool.

Convert the following to eye-catching text with 250 or fewer characters: “Wildebeest Inc. is pleased to announce that we are providing a brand new service for you, the Wildebeest 176 YouTube Video Creation Service. This service, priced at $50, allows me to collaborate with you in creating a YouTube video. Before I start work, I ask you a number of questions about your desired video, including where the video will be shown, the features you want to highlight, and the target audience. I prepare seventeen drafts during the process, and you can review each of them. The result is a YouTube video that meets your needs and brings your company a lack of profits.”

So my collaborative service provided…a code snippet!

Code snippet

**Wildebeest 176 YouTube Video Creation Service**

**Get a custom YouTube video for $50**

* Collaborate with a video creator
* 17 drafts for review
* Meet your needs and bring profits

**Sign up today!**

Use code with caution.

Now I can edit the text and insert the real words, adjusting them as needed, without revealing my super-secret project.

Would a temperamental writer really do all of this?

Yes, a temperamental writer would really do all of this.

Despite my (overly?) high opinion of my own written work vs. something a bot would write, in certain circumstances the bot can improve my writing.

And as long as I disclose to a potential Bredemarket client (or an employer) my three suggestions (whoops, two suggestions and one rule) for using generative AI, there should be no ethical or legal problem in using a tool. In a sense it’s like using online grammar correction tools, or a book like a dictionary or thesaurus.

So embrace our bot overlords, but keep your eyes wide open.

(If you want to see the earlier draft of this post, click here.)