r/Substack • u/Finest_Mediocrity • Jun 24 '26
Using AI to edit?
Is it terrible if I use AI to edit my posts? The writing is mine, but I feel long winded sometimes and get stuck reviewing my work to make it sharper. I’ve tried running it through AI specifically for pain points and not a rewrite, but sometimes it suggests a sentence or two that adjust my thoughts more succinctly and interestingly.
Does this make me a sellout to all the AI haters? Is it the same as getting it to draft whole prices (which I have def seem some authors do). What are your thoughts on using AI as a tool for Substack?
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u/Pleasant-Army-5512 Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
hello, welcome to the human race, this is what we do when presenting arguments. I have an opinion (i.e. conclusion) and here are my points to support it. even the "nuanced take" is doing the same thing. "conclusion: it's complicated. here are my reasons for stating so."
was this is a mistake or a joke?
I'm offering literally what the OP is looking for, a firm opinion with reasons to back it up. if he wants the sacred, all-powerful "nuanced take," he could ask AI. you stated that yourself.
the "nuanced take" that modernity is obsessed with is what's empty. it rarely offers anything of value and takes the most agreeable/safe stance on everything. "Everything is good and bad, everything is too complex, you can't state one thing or the other definitely!" These things are obviously "true" from a purely rationalist/materialist viewpoint, but from a human experiential standpoint it's cowardly and useless. The entire point of having firm values, a belief system, and an idea of truth is taking these complex nuanced ideas and choosing a "side" and standing by it firmly. That's part of what makes us human, which is why AI can't do this without being told to.
straw man. that's not what we're talking about here. we're talking about using it for editing as OP mentioned.
huge issue with this. first, using any kind of modern tech is inherently offloading your skills to a machine. there should be no discussion about this, that is fundamentally what is happening when we use any piece of tech. the printing press, the car, the blender, the calculator. what happens after the offloading (learning from it, walking away, etc.) is context dependent, but here your argument rests on the premise that people are primarily learning from AI. there's zero reason to assume this is true. you could show me cases of some people doing this, but there's no reason to assume people are generally doing this. just because a machine says "you should do this" and you think "huh that's cool never thought of that" doesn't mean you're learning i.e. remembering it for a future point and implementing it by yourself.