In a recent article for The New Yorker, Carl Newton asks, “What kind of writer is ChatGPT?” While many see it as a perfect tool for plagiarism, he suggests that the truth is much more surprising.
n the article, Newton features a graduate student, Chris, who reportedly used ChatGPT to assist with a writing assignment on perspectivism. Despite trying various approaches, including editing, outlining, and engaging in a Socratic dialogue, Chris found ChatGPT’s writing inadequate and ultimately unsatisfactory.
Newton notes that a study by Stacey Pigg examined how writers use generative AI, finding that its applications are diverse and fragmented. The nonprofit NaNoWriMo’s decision to allow AI use sparked controversy, highlighting the lack of consensus around acceptable AI usage in writing. For both Chris and Pigg, ChatGPT serves as a sounding board for writers, helping them explore ideas and refine their work. While it raises concerns about originality and plagiarism, it also presents opportunities for new and inventive approaches to writing.
Writing is hard. It requires us to use multiple parts of the brain in an improbable symphony of high-strain effort. Our hippocampus summons relevant facts; the prefrontal cortex tries to organize them. A brain region known as Broca’s area helps us to narrate in a familiar inner voice; our verbal working memory stores and manipulates the narration as we transfer it to the page. Meanwhile, our brain recruits our spatial working memory, which evolved to track our location in physical space, to orient our words within a whole.
– Cal Newton, The New Yorker
Writers often adopt eccentric habits and rituals to reduce the cognitive demands of writing. These include isolating themselves, using familiar tools, and establishing routines that ease their brains into a productive state.
ChatGPT has been used to assist with writing by providing research support and generating ideas. However, its responses are often too generic and lack depth. In some cases, it even fabricates information, such as a quote it falsely attributed to Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker: “Writing is the most complex and demanding task our brains can undertake.”
Sharing his personal experience using ChatGPT in his own writing, Newton suggests that while the tool is inefficient, it can provide useful starting points. By reducing the initial mental effort required, ChatGPT transforms writing from a series of intense bursts into a smoother, more enjoyable process. It can temporarily offload working memory, increase writing stamina, and generate a “shitty first draft,” leaving more time and energy for revision.
Newton adds that this collaboration between writers and AI, what he calls “rhetorical load sharing”, places AI neither fully in the role of writer nor merely as a support tool, but somewhere in between. This in-between role challenges traditional writing rituals and helps explain why the technology makes many writers uncomfortable.
When Newton asked several professors about AI-assisted writing, their responses were mixed. While some assignments can be easily completed with AI, longer and more complex work still demands critical thinking and clear, original writing.
Finally, Newton sought ChatGPT’s help crafting a concluding line for his essay and found the chatbot’s suggestion to be a strong starting point:
In the end, the true value of tools like ChatGPT lies not in making academic work easier, but in empowering students to engage more deeply with their ideas and express them with greater confidence.
– Carl Newton, New Yorker
As the Axios article notes, AI can be a helpful tool, but many people are setting boundaries, choosing to rely on their own skills, judgment, and relationships rather than defaulting to AI for everything.
For my own reading and note-taking purposes, I asked ChatGPT the following question:
What is your recommendation for my writing? I often read interesting articles and want to summarize them for archival purposes. What approach should I take?
ChatGPT offered this guidance:
Summarize for future recall, not completeness: identify the article’s core question, capture memorable examples, note what changed your thinking, and close with the author’s main takeaway, so you remember why it mattered later.
When I asked ChatGPT for an appropriate prompt, here was the response:
I just read a New Yorker article by Carl Newton titled “What Kind of Writer is ChatGPT?” Please create a clear, concise summary suitable for my personal reading notes. Include the main question or thesis, key examples or anecdotes, surprising insights, and the author’s main takeaway. Keep it readable, structured, and concise, so I can easily recall the article months later.
Next time, I plan to use this prompt to generate my reading notes and test ChatGPT’s ability to draft in my writing style. When I asked ChatGPT about the conclusion of the Axios article, this is what it said:
Yes, I agree with the view in principle. AI can be an extremely useful tool for research, drafting, brainstorming, or even routine tasks—but relying on it for everything can erode critical thinking, creativity, and human judgment. Setting boundaries, like prioritizing your own skills, relationships, and decision-making, preserves the uniquely human aspects of work and learning.
It’s a balance: AI as assistant, not crutch. Overuse can lead to dependency, but judicious use can enhance productivity and insight.
Acknowledgement: This post summary was generated using AI writing tools as part of my experimental learning process. For more information, check out the original New Yorker article listed below.
Related resource Link
- Evidence That Humans Now Speak in a Chatbot-Influenced Dialect Is Getting Stronger | Gizmodo
- What Kind of Writer Is ChatGPT? | The New Yorker
- How not to use AI | Axios