#185 - Why I Know AI Will Never Take Your Storytelling Job
Honest storytelling in the age of robots
This is Adventures in Storytelling your weekly note with resources, insights, and actionable tools for better communication through storytelling. From a neurospicey brain sharing with honesty. Enjoy.
Here’s how I know AI will never take my job as a writer: I write honestly and based on my unique lived experience as a human being on planet earth.
“You say things in a way, I’d never even think of. It’s strange.” I gleamed with pride when a friend said this to me in high school. What could have been received as an insult, I took to mean I was special and unique. And as a former gifted kid in an specialized dramatic arts program, I was always looking for evidence of my one-of-a-kindness.
As I’ve gotten older, I have held that questionable compliment close and use it as a reminder in my writing to avoid saying it the way everyone else does. Avoid doing it (“it” being life) the way everyone else does, and bring those two together to write with honesty.
Writing with honesty doesn’t mean baring your soul if that’s not what you set out to accomplish. It does require a little vulnerability to tell the truth of your experience. But really what it means is tapping into who you are and your experience of the world from your unique perspective and sharing it.
That doesn’t mean I write biography, it just means I write from where I’m sitting and that is a place no one else can write from. I have a neurospicey brain that makes connections others don’t see and I use that in my approach to storytelling–for my consulting clients, in my writing, and for my Re-Work sharing.
Which is why AI doesn’t worry me when it comes to storytelling–it’s never been a neurospicy, former gifted, artsy Black girl with a fanciful imagination born in Toronto, and in love with strategic work. And it’s never been YOU and seen what you have seen.
Have you ever noticed the stilted sort of cold, cliched tone to some writing you’ve read on the internet lately? The “content”? That was probably written by AI. And it does a fine job, but I have yet to see it write something interesting put together in ways you’d never even think of.
You know that old writing adage, “avoid cliche?” It is especially relevant in these times of AI because it’s the difference between your honest and human storytelling and what any robot could create.
What’s your unique perspective? How do you put a story together in a way no one else would? We all have it, I’d encourage you to explore what your special bit of storytelling magic is. And use it to share stories in a way no one else could think of.
A Story Well Told
So a lot of Canadians are getting into buying local after the American government kicked off a trade war with its two closest allies. The story of small Canadian businesses in the context of this trade war cannot be overlooked. Jess, the founder of Free Label in Vancouver shared a post and note on instagram that does a beautiful job of humanizing and bringing to life a hopeful but honest perspective on the situation. This is honest storytelling (notice it’s a little vulnerable too?)
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