When expertise reporter Alex Heath has a scoop, he sits down at his laptop and speaks right into a microphone. He’s not speaking to a human colleague—Heath went independent on Substack final yr—he’s speaking to Claude. Utilizing the AI-powered voice-to-text service Wispr Movement, Heath transmits his concepts to an AI agent, then lets it write his first draft.
Heath sat down with me final week to showcase how he’s built-in Anthropic’s Claude Cowork into his journalistic course of. The AI instrument is related to his Gmail, Google Calendar, Granola AI transcription service, and Notion notes. He’s additionally constructed an in depth ability—a customized set of directions—to assist Claude write in his type, together with the “10 commandments” of writing like Alex Heath. The ability contains earlier articles he’s written, directions on how he likes his newsletters to be structured, and notes on his voice and writing type.
Claude Cowork then automates the drafting course of that used to happen in Heath’s head. After the agent finishes its first draft, Heath goes forwards and backwards with it for as much as half-hour, suggesting revisions. It’s fairly an concerned course of, and he nonetheless writes some components of the story himself. However Heath says this workflow saves him hours each week, and he now spends 30 to 40 % much less time writing.
“I’ve all the time hated the zero-to-one strategy of writing a narrative … Now, it’s truly sort of enjoyable,” he says. “Going out by myself, I noticed I want AI to assist with the amount.”
Heath is a part of a rising contingent of tech reporters utilizing AI to assist write and edit their tales. The AI workflow is particularly engaging for reporters who’ve gone unbiased, shedding beneficial sources like editors and fact-checkers that sometimes include a standard newsroom. Reasonably than simply prompting ChatGPT to put in writing tales, unbiased journalists say they’re re-creating these sources with AI.
Their utilization raises broader questions concerning the worth of human journalists altogether. If individuals are utilizing AI to put in writing, edit, and fact-check their tales—what do people convey to the desk? A latest study from Google DeepMind researchers means that utilizing AI in a lazy approach could make your writing extra homogeneous. It’s much less artistic, it has much less voice, and it takes on a extra impartial stance. To make use of AI properly, journalists I spoke to say they should perceive why individuals are paying for his or her work within the first place. (WIRED’s coverage prohibits using AI in writing or modifying).
Whereas some writers have constructed a profession on their evaluation and prose, Heath sees his worth as his potential to get scoops. Claude makes it simpler for him to spend extra time chatting with sources and getting info out to his subscribers.
A number of longtime journalists remarked to me that Heath’s workflow appears like a contemporary model of a long-standing establishment: the rewrite desk. Within the days earlier than laptops and smartphones, reporters within the subject would name in tales to a newsroom, the place writers behind a desk would shortly weave these reported particulars into articles they might print for the subsequent day’s paper. This allowed some reporters to spend their days masking occasions and speaking to sources. In a approach, Claude is now Heath’s rewrite desk.
“I really feel like I’m dishonest in a approach that feels superb,” says Heath. “I by no means did this as a result of I favored being a author. I like reporting, studying new issues, having an edge, and telling folks issues that can make them really feel sensible six months from now.”
Jasmine Solar, who beforehand labored as a product supervisor at Substack, not too long ago launched her personal e-newsletter masking AI and Silicon Valley tradition. Final week, she revealed an article in The Atlantic about how post-training makes AI models bad at writing by basically beating out their creativity. Due to that, Solar by no means makes use of AI to put in writing, however she has discovered promise utilizing Claude as an editor.
