You Can’t Unsee AI Editing
Daniel Heuman, CEO and Founder, Intelligent Editing
The first time I saw ChatGPT simplify some text, my jaw dropped wide open. I asked myself if editing would ever be the same again.
I watched as ChatGPT simplified one sentence. Then ChatGPT converted another to plain English. The results were staggering.
Figure 1: My first time asking ChatGPT to write something in plain English
ChatGPT didn’t always get it exactly right. But people don’t always get their edits exactly right either! And so I did what everyone does when they first see AI take over a human skill.
I worried.
I worried what it meant for our company (PerfectIt is an app designed for professional editing). I worried what it meant for the worldwide community of editors. I worried what it meant for humanity as a whole.
But that initial fear faded. I started to understand why AI can’t replace editors. And I began to realize the amazing possibilities AI presents for editing.
Why AI Can’t Replace Editors
There are obvious reasons why AI can’t do an editor’s job: It can’t manage an author; it can’t give challenging feedback in an encouraging way; its poor fact checking and hallucinations are legendary.
However, the most interesting reason why AI can’t replace editors is because, despite first impressions, ChatGPT is a poor copyeditor.
Copyediting is an art that demands subtlety. While corrections are critical, the value of a skilled copyeditor extends far beyond the mechanics of grammar and punctuation. At the heart of quality editing lies a deep respect for the author’s unique voice – the personal style, tone and perspective that make each piece of writing distinct. AI falls short in understanding these nuances.
This breakdown of ChatGPT’s editing recommendations for George Orwell encapsulates the issue.
Figure 2: ChatGPT’s edits of George Orwell suggest it’s not as good an editor as it seems
Of course, AI fails at the human parts of the job such as managing relationships. But when you dig deeper, despite its initial impressiveness, ChatGPT is also simply not a good copyeditor.
Editing Will Be More Important Than Ever
In a world where AI makes mediocre content creation a breeze, editing is a more important skill than ever. So what’s our role in this new landscape?
Our mission has always been clear: “We believe people make the best editing decisions and they always will. We build technology to help people edit faster and better.”
This ethos isn’t bound by a specific technology. While PerfectIt has never harnessed AI (and that isn’t going to change based on what we’ve seen so far), the bigger question is - how do we craft a product for editors in the age of AI? What does that even look like?
No one wants a copyeditor who is indifferent to the author’s voice. Recognizing this, we have identified a more fitting role for AI in the writing process – one that is less invasive to the author’s unique voice, yet still tremendously valuable. We believe that AI’s strength lies earlier in the document creation process, where it can serve as a sounding board, tightening prose, and offering suggestions to enhance clarity and readability. With this vision, we’ve developed Draftsmith.
Draftsmith: A Writing Refiner
Draftsmith helps you refine your writing. It is designed to work in the initial stages of writing – after the first draft is produced, and before the final polish. It’s primarily a tool for writers. However, editors working on more extensive copyedits will find it useful too.
Draftsmith works the way you do. It brings the power of AI into Microsoft Word. It gives you direct access to suggestions from OpenAI (the makers of ChatGPT) as you work eliminating the need to copy/paste into a browser. Draftsmith refines your content sentence by sentence, because we understand that quality-conscious professionals want to make sure that each suggestion is truly an improvement.
If you’re looking for a product that checks consistency, house styles, acronyms and more, that’s still PerfectIt. It doesn’t use AI. If you’re using the Windows edition, PerfectIt never sends any data anywhere. If you have a subscription to CMOS Online, PerfectIt is the only product you can use to check The Chicago Manual of Style. The functionality of Draftsmith and PerfectIt are clearly distinct.
Once you see what AI can do for editing, you won’t be able to unsee it. But you can use it! With Draftsmith, you can take text from a draft to a final version faster and better than ever before.