iA Writer 7: Blending AI Efficiency with Human Ingenuity in Writing

Information Architects recently unveiled the latest iteration of their iA Writer software, where they shared their approach to working with AI. As an agile psychologist deeply involved in both psychology and technology, I have mixed feelings about AI tools like ChatGPT. It’s a bit of keen interest and cautious scrutiny.

While I am generally optimistic about the potential of AI to improve our workflows, I also maintain a degree of caution. The key is to ensure that AI remains a complement to our human cognitive and decision-making abilities, not a replacement.

So how do I try to incorporate such tools into my workflows?

• AI is my sparring partner. I let it check my methods, my facilitation techniques and sometimes the sparringspartner AI is the devil advocate for my ideas.
• AI is my technical support when I am trying to implement some ideas in Jira or when I am getting familiar with some new plugins and tools.
• I use it to create thumbnails for my blog posts - I can describe what I want to see, but I’m terrible at creating those images.
• AI helps me feel more comfortable writing in English. I’m not a native speaker and my grades in school were terrible, but Deepl (also an AI) checks for typical errors in grammar, syntax and suggests more common words when I use words incorrectly.

But back to iA and their attempt to deal with AI generated content. The major update to iA Writer (7.0) does something remarkable, in my opinion. Unlike most writing tools, it doesn’t use AI to create content. Instead, it deals with AI in a way that respects and preserves the writer’s voice and agency by dimming AI-generated content. It offers a glimpse of a future where AI and human intelligence work seamlessly together, each playing to its strengths. The human mind provides creativity, empathy, and ethical judgment, while AI provides computational power and efficiency.

In the future, I hope tools like iA Writer 7 becoming more prevalent, offering sophisticated AI assistance while ensuring that the human element remains central. As we move forward, it’s important to continually evaluate and recalibrate our relationship with AI. We should play with these tools to expand our capabilities without compromising the qualities that make us distinctly human.