03/31/2026
"Over the weekend, writers and journalists were left reeling after Megan McArdle, long-time columnist at The Washington Post, gushed about the benefits of using AI to optimize her writing.
โThink of your chatbot as a combination of an intern, a first-pass editor, and fact-checker,โ she advised in a series of tweets that possessed the genteel tone of a telemarketer peddling a fraudulent scheme. While McArdle was emphatic about not using the technology to generate ideas, she praised its ability to take care of the โgrunt work,โ which she considers secondary to writing and thinking.
If youโre a media professional whoโs been forced to relinquish the idea of earning a living from the work you love to hate, itโs hard not to feel taunted by this casual admission of corner-cutting from a successful and salaried writer at a legacy publication.
..For all we know, McArdleโs endorsement of AI could be a shameless plug encouraged in a company-wide memo by the ghoulish Jeff Bezos, who seems hellbent on driving the publication that leaked Watergate into extinction. Paid ad or not, it still raises the question of why a writer with the luxury of institutional backing, staff support, and guaranteed income would pawn off the most vital parts of their job to a robot."
Over the weekend, writers and journalists were left reeling after Megan McArdle, long-time columnist at The Washington Post, gushed about the benefits of using AI to optimize her writing. โThink of your chatbot as a combination of an intern, a first-pass editor, and fact-checker,โ she advised in...