The Upward Shift: From Author to Editor

For eons we humans have been the creators. We are the initiators, the designers and the authors for more or less everything that has not come to pass naturally. But things are about to change, or rather have already done so. In the annals of technological evolution, few advancements have been as transformative as the rise of large language models or LLMs. These sophisticated AI systems have the ability to generate text, translate languages, write different kinds of creative content and answer your most questions in an informative way. Things that until recently was well solely in the domain of human expertise.

These models are continuing to advance and as they do, they are reshaping the landscape of content creation and shifting the role of human creators from authors to editors. While that might at first seem to be a horrible idea, I for one believe it is simply the next step towards the next phase, the knowledge society. Traditionally, content creation has been a solitary endeavor. Authors or creators in general spent countless hours researching, writing, and revising their work. Their creations are built on layers upon layers of prior work, concepts dating back as the beginning of time or technological progress just a few weeks old.

However, with the advent of LLMs, this process is undergoing a paradigm shift, and I would say for the most part for the better. Modern AI systems can generate vast amounts of content, from simple summaries to complex reports at a speed and scale that is simply unattainable for human authors. We have never been more productive than we are today after all. Instead of spending countless hours writing and revising content, employees can now focus on reviewing and editing the material generated by LLMs. This allows them to concentrate on higher-level tasks, such as ensuring accuracy, coherence and relevance. It also frees up time for more strategic activities, such as developing content strategies, conducting research and engaging with audiences. As well as discussing the material that has been produced. These are the areas we’re we humans excel over the machines.

To a large extent most of the work being produced both today and in the beforetime, pre LLM, are derivative works. We are simply recompiling and updating works that have already been finished. There are no real creative values being added to most financial reports, end of year summations or for that matter most informative articles on the company’s intranet. We have prior work to adopt and numbers to update or information to share. The main thing is that we get this fact correctly, and as we are humans we also tend to fail on this point as well.

No it might seem like I’m coming down hard on the creative types out there. But fear not, we are all being upshifted in the days to come.

The collaboration between humans and LLMs is leading to a significant improvement in the quality of content. These mindless models can provide a wealth of information and perspectives, helping authors to broaden their horizons and avoid biases as well as create content well above their normal capacity. Take technical documentation for an example. When written by the developers and engineers themselves it is factually correct but more or less unreadable to anyone except the team itself. A skilled editor can rewrite it, but with an LLM the engineer can be responsible to update the manual and get human readable text as an output. Finally we can be understood by the public at large.

More so these models can also identify errors and inconsistencies that might be missed by human editors. We, humans, tend to overlook things and fill in the blanks with information we already possess. The machine does not make these kinds or errors. It has its own flaws and so we get back to the need for human supervision.

One of the most exciting applications of LLMs is their ability to generate code. Developers can use these tools to automate repetitive tasks, such as writing boilerplate code or generating API documentation. The boring parts of any developers day-to-day can now be done by someone else. Someone that cannot complain and does it faster than anyone at the office. It is just great!

I have come to love this over the last couple of months. Me and my team, when in a situation where the opportunity is given, can generate and review countless mundane tasks that would otherwise have taken us hours in mere minutes. This has free up time to focus on more complex and creative aspects of software development and once or twice actually produced code with subtle improvements over the code we had envisioned. We would have figured it out eventually, but the LLM solved it right out of the box.

It has also led me to believe that we are finally passed the framework peak and that the need for dependencies upon dependencies just to get one extra free feature into our solution is finally over. But more about that in a later blogpost.

Back to the main topic. While the rise of LLMs may seem like a threat to human creativity, it is important to remember that these tools are simply tools. They might seem magical at first, but they are no different than any tool that came before.

They are not capable of replacing the human touch that is essential for truly exceptional content. They can generate ideas and information, but they cannot infuse content with the unique perspectives, experiences and emotions that only humans can bring to the table. We are still needed!

Human editors play a crucial role in ensuring that AI-generated content is accurate, relevant and engaging. We can and will provide context, add nuance and refine the tone and style of the generated material. It’s also our responsibility to ensure that the content aligns with the organization’s goals and values. The machine after all is just guessing and quality assurance is up to us. Or checking that the code runs.

The shift from author to editor is a natural evolution of the content creation process. We have been creating derivative works ourselves for ages but LLMs are just a more powerful tool that can help us to create better content, faster and more efficiently. By embracing this new reality, we can unlock the full potential of human creativity and innovation as well as lowering the bar of entry. Everyone can, and should be, a creator in the years to come.