General Discussion

I made my living for almost my entire adult life through writing. Not fiction, but non-fiction articles for magazines. Major ones. Here's why AI will work to replace writers to some degree:

Early on in my writing career, I realized what it would take for me to be successful in the magazine world. Over about a year, I learned to create specific algorithms for different magazines I wanted to write for. It wasn't as difficult as you might think. Here is what my process was for creating an algorithm for any magazine I intended to write for:

First, I bought the most recent two issues of that magazine and quickly read through them.

Next, I read them in a more detailed way, focusing on the articles that were the most similar in subject matter to what I hoped to sell to that publication. I took notes, to help me create the algorithm for that type of article in that particular publication. Some of the things I included in the algorithm:

Article word count.
Average length of paragraphs.
Average length of sentence.
Level of diction - what words were chosen to use, related to reading ability of their target audience.
Style details: Use of Boston comma. Punctuation style (semicolons?) Pronoun usages. Point of view and references to readers.
Use of metaphors.
Logical structure of article - Style of lede, length of introduction, number of paragraphs for structural purposes, assumptions about readers, method of summing up and conclusion.

There was more, of course, in my eventual algorithm for each magazine. That algorithm fit on a single page, which I filed for reference when needed.

Once I had the algorithm, based on current issues, I looked at the most recent year's issues to create an editorial calendar for that magazine. Typically, at the time, queries to editors needed to be made about 6 months in advance of issue date. Then, I'd come up with possible articles for an issue six months out and send that list of proposals. to the editor most likely to be the editor I might be working with. That also took some research effort. Of course, I also included information about myself, if I was unknown to the editor.

This did not always work, of course. But it did work well enough to get me a foot in the door in enough cases. Then, I followed my own rules for myself. What I sent to the magazine for that first assignment was an article that was error-free, on time, at the length that type of article usually had, and in the style of that magazine. The style was always based on my assessment of the algorithm used in recent issues.

It worked for me. Editors liked seeing my stuff come in, because it was already very close to what it would turn out to be, after their editing. That meant less work for them and ensured that my proposals would have a better chance of becoming assignments.

Algorithms are what AI is about. That's why an AI text generation program can closely mimic the output from a writer who writes similar things over and over again. Some novelists make their careers from writing formulaic novels. They have an internal algorithm for creating those books. Same thing. AI can do that, and will do that, with or without the permission of the authors. Guaranteed.