There’s a war of the words going on. People are fighting over whether someone can call themselves a writer if they use AI to help write articles. Some readers defiantly won’t read anything that’s been touched by AI. Some writers won’t write without it. Everyone righteously believes their perspective is best. Maybe everyone’s wrong.
The conflict wants a yes/no answer. There isn’t one, because it’s the wrong question. What really matters is the meaning that “I’m a writer” has. That is what’s provoking all the feelings.
“Writer” Means Something. Literally.
To know if you can say “I am a writer who uses AI” or “I am a coder who uses AI” or “I am a whatever who uses AI,” let’s review how words work.
Words mean things. Writer, coder, and painter are agent nouns. That means they are doing the action. Here, those nouns are one-who-writes, one-who-codes, and one-who-paints. That’s the claim the word is making.
Does using AI make you less of a writer? It depends. Writing isn’t one skill; it’s many. It has many subskills: creating ideas, developing logic, outlining, researching, wordsmithing (aka “writing”), editing, and proofreading.
When one person does everything, we call them a “writer.” When we give an LLM all those roles with a prompt like “write a science fiction story about a mouse that can talk,” then by definition, the LLM is all of those doers. If all you’re doing is giving a prompt, then you’re not writing; you’re commissioning writing from an LLM. The LLM is the writer.
Superman, X-Men, and Archie show us the way
Comic books give us a way to talk about this. Creating a comic takes many skills: writing the story, penciling the layouts, inking the final linework, coloring the pages, and lettering the speech bubbles. Sometimes one person does everything. But not always.
In companies like DC, Marvel, or Archie Comics, those are separate roles, done by separate people. Each is considered a distinct, valuable skill set.
If you’re just giving a prompt, then you aren’t writing; you’re commissioning writing from an LLM.
The word for someone who does everything themselves is “cartoonist.” It means they take all the roles. Otherwise, they name their role. “I’m the writer of X-Men.” Or “I’m the inker for Superman.” Or “I’m the colorist for Elfquest.”
Writing Isn’t as Clear-Cut
We’re sloppier about the word “writer.” But perhaps we can resolve the holy war of job titles by taking a page from our comic book brethren.
I’m a writer. I choose the words and the sentences. I have all the skills—I’ve done every task from idea to published work—but often, it’s a team effort. Having a separate editor (mine are almost always named Emily for some reason) improves my work. I’m still the writer, and Emily is the editor.
The Anatomy of Writing
There’s more to producing a written work than just writing and editing. There’s ideation, outlining, research, developmental editing, writing the words, copyediting, proofreading, and coordinating all of the above.
What if you use an LLM to come up with ideas, develop the outline, do the research, and do all the editing, while you write the words? I think that makes you a writer. But you’re not the idea creator (who I’ll call the “ideator”), you’re not the outliner, you’re not the researcher, you’re not the editor, and you’re not a proofreader. You are one-who-writes. It would be misleading to take credit for the other phases.
There’s an easy test to find out if you inhabit a particular role. Just imagine someone asking you a question about that role in an interview.
How did you come up with that idea? If you had inspiration other than asking an LLM, then you were the ideator.
Why did you write this article chronologically rather than as an expository essay? If you had a logic to the article outline, then you were the outliner. Otherwise it was the LLM.
Why didn’t you write in a more academic style? If you can say why you made that decision, then you were the writer. Otherwise it was the LLM.
AI Nutrition Labels Can Heal the Divide
To help quell the holy wars over whether someone is a real writer, I propose we use a label, just as we do with food. An “AI Nutrition Label” can address the separation of roles head-on. It will tell skeptical readers where we applied our own expertise and where we used an LLM.
Here’s the AI Nutrition Label for this very article. Claude helped me frame the idea, learn the specific names for the roles in the comic book industry, and do an editing pass before publication.
─────────────────────────────────
🏷️ AI NUTRITION FACTS
Serving size: 1 article
─────────────────────────────────
HUMAN AI
Ideating ✓ ✓
Outlining ✓ ·
Researching · ✓
Developmental editing ✓ ·
Writing ✓ ·
Copyediting ✓ ✓
Proofreading · ✓
Coordinating ✓ ·
─────────────────────────────────
Stever Robbins is the writer of
this article. Claude assisted.
─────────────────────────────────Writing a label like this is also a tool for self-insight. As I wrote the label above, I definitely felt a twinge of vulnerability. “Will people think less of me because I used Claude to do some research? Is the title ‘writer’ justified if I brainstormed with Claude to come up with article ideas?”
That vulnerability teaches me something. It’s my mind’s signal that I want credit for doing all the work. It might take longer, but that’s what makes it my work. Not everything is just about the end result; sometimes the process matters.
After reading the label above and noticing my feelings about it, I’ve come to realize that I want to own as much of the process as possible. Outsourcing the copyediting and proofreading makes sense—editing my own writing is hard to do because I’m too close to it. But everything else? That’s mine.
You Can Be What You Want—Just Do the Work
Being a good writer from idea to finished work is hard. But it’s hard because the most important parts of writing are developing and structuring the message the writing must convey. It’s word choice. It’s logic. It’s understanding your audience, what they know, and what they don’t. It’s crafting a piece of communication that reaches this audience with a message designed to change the audience in this way.
Not everything is about an end result—sometimes the process matters.
Use an AI nutrition label so others know—and you know—your actual contribution to the writing you’ve created. If there are many checks in the “AI” column, you can decide if you want to develop those skills or continue to outsource them. You can learn to do all the phases yourself, then outsource the ones you don’t like.
I guarantee you’ll love yourself more.
Writing is not the skill of putting sentences on a page. It’s the skill of putting the right sentences on a page. Doing the work yourself doesn’t just demonstrate the quality of your thinking—it improves it.
Then when you step in front of an audience, sit down for an interview, or discuss your writing one-on-one with an employer or prospect, you’ll be able to answer any question in a way that shows strength, competence, and rigor.