Valuable Words

No need to read this entire post.

Here’s the one-paragraph AI summary:

This post discusses how the value of words has changed due to advances in technology. While auto-generated content is becoming more prevalent, the act of choosing unique words remains valuable. Essentially, the landscape of communication is evolving, and hand-crafted words won’t disappear entirely, but their significance may increase as they become rarer.

We live at a fascinating moment in time.

The workflow of writing has fundamentally changed.

Altering the course of history.

Forever.

In the olden days – like mid-2022 – forming words into sentences required effort. And time. And thought.

Now, in an instant, you can produce more words than your colleagues will ever have time to read. Requiring us all to rethink how we communicate. How our people connect and our workplaces work.

Teams are now using AI to help craft detailed reports to better communicate their findings. Which then aren’t fully read as busy leaders use AI to summarise the key points, as they rush into their next meeting. Which no one else turns up to, as they’ve all sent their AIs to summarise what was said.

Fortunately, it won’t work out exactly like this – as there’s far more involved in the acts of writing, reading and meeting than information exchange.

But make no mistake, the value of words has changed. This won’t be a simple or easily agreeable shift. Significant change rarely is.

However, reassure yourself that we’ve been here before.

There was a time when the generative shortcut of photographing instead of drawing or painting seemed wrong. Yet society adapted. With photography becoming a new form of creativity and expression, democratising the skill of communicating with images. Then exponentially multiplying with a mobile camera in everyone’s hands.

So what’s to become of these
rare hand-crafted words?

This profound change doesn’t mean they will disappear. As market dynamics shift, values evolve. Over time as auto-generated paragraphs multiply and commoditise, the ability to capture and share your own unique thoughts may in fact make the act of choosing

the right words

even more

valuable.