Stop Letting ChatGPT Write for You
Before It Silences Your Voice Forever
My Medium friends can read this over there as well.
The Day AI Got Lobotomised
When Sam Altman recently admitted that OpenAI had “totally screwed up” the release of ChatGPT-5, my heart sank.
Here was the world’s leading LLM - suddenly less nuanced, sharp, and less useful for serious writing.
Users even commented how it lacked its previous warmth too.
So why the downgrade? Was it legal risks, mental health concerns, or just corporate fear?
Whatever the reason, the result was the same: ChatGPT got neutered.
Then the alarm bells started ringing.
For years I used to do SEO for clients and my own projects, and suddenly this seemed just like those dreaded Google algorithm updates all over again.
One tweak, and the entire system you’d built collapses overnight (and irate clients are on the phone asking why their rankings for 'holiday parks in Dorset' have tanked).
Why This Matters to Writers Like Us
If you’re building your writing business around the selective use of AI tools as part of your process, this is your warning shot.
Because here’s the truth: the machine isn’t stable.
Today it’s clever
Tomorrow it’s lobotomised
Next week it’s paywalled
And if your entire writing system depends on that machine, you’re building on shaky ground.
The Human Core That Never Breaks
So what's the answer? It's simple - build your workflow around what never changes: your own ideas, lived experience and stories.
That means:
Ideas & Stories = Human → Your perspective is the seed.
Research & Structuring = AI Assisted → Let the tools gather, summarise, and map.
Drafting & Editing = Human First → AI can polish, but your voice must lead.
Repurposing = AI Muscle → Let AI slice your essay into tweets, threads, shorts - and even info products.
This way, if the next ill-judged update makes AI a complete idiot, then the whole premise of your writing business isn't screwed.
You’ll still have a writing system that works.
Practical Tips for Your Writing Workflow
So here are some action steps to make this work in your daily writing sessions:
Bank your stories now. Write down everyday observations, ideas, recollections, news stories, stats, whims, moods and experiences. These become your unshakable content seeds.
Use AI only for the scaffolding. Outlines and research summaries certainly - but never the finished piece.
Edit your work yourself. No AI can fully replace your human judgment, especially in a polarised age when nuance matters more than ever.
Automate the grunt work. Use prompts to repurpose your longer form writing into LinkedIn posts, X threads, YouTube videos and digital products - because distribution and reuse of original ideas is where the machine shines.
The Long Game
We can't rely on third party companies and tools.
Every time AI takes a step backwards with an upgrade we can't control, it proves the same important point: your human voice is the asset.
AI is your amplifier, not your instrument.
So stop trying to hand over the music and write the melody yourself. Then, and only then, let AI help with the mixing.
Exactly. I create a number of header tags depending on what I'm writing. I asked AI to give me three bullet points to cover underneath each header tag. It does the research and gives me those three bullet points and then I go right what I want to write and make sure I cover those topics. Then, usually still add more.
It takes less time to look at those bullet points and then write what I want to write then it does to edit what the AI wrote and it always comes out better.