Blizzard

 

By the time we stepped out of Washington DC’s Union Station last night, the blizzard had already been at work for a few hours. Snow came down hard and heavy. The kind that looks cinematic and inviting until you have to walk through it.

The roads around the station were mostly clear ... traffic had bullied the snow into submission. We grabbed an Uber without much trouble.

The city streets were unexpectedly busy. In the nation's capital even a blizzard can’t fully cancel the instinct to commute ... headlights glowing, brake lights blinking, snow reduced to wet grit by the sheer force of movement. But once we crossed into suburban Virginia, the mood shifted. The traffic thinned. The slush gave way to actual snow.

Even with the windshield wipers at full speed, visibility narrowed to a kind of soft white blindness. The world outside the windshield looked like an overexposed photograph. We could feel the tires crunch through fresh layers, that brittle, granular sound that says, “You are no longer in control.” Every so often the car would start to hydroplane before the tires found their footing again.

I kept waiting for the driver to say, “This is as far as I go. This is unsafe.” It would have been reasonable. Sensible, even. But he didn’t. Maybe there wasn’t anywhere decent to stop. Maybe he was young enough to be shielded by that sense of invulnerability that weakens with age and experience.

When we turned into our neighborhood, the car pressed the first tracks into snow that hadn’t yet been disturbed. When we reached our house and stepped out of the car, the cold was immediate, complimented by the muffled quiet that only heavy snowstorms manage. We thanked him. He told us to stay warm. We told him to drive safely.

Bags in hand, we trudged up the driveway, trying and failing to keep snow out of our inappropriate for the weather running shoes. I turned back just in time to see the white Toyota Corolla dissolve into the white curtain of falling snow. After it vanished, I could still hear the low hum of the engine and the steady crunch of tires on new snow long after sight had given up. I like to think he was headed home. Everyone should be, in weather like that.

AI Didn’t Kill Writing. It Killed the Illusion of Exclusivity.

 

Remember when marketing writing was a craft? A noble pursuit? A thing you earned with late nights wrangling ideas with swipe files and too much coffee?

Then, BAM: AI walked in, kicked the door off the hinges, dumped a stack of “pretty decent” drafts on the table, and said, “Hey folks, we’re all writers now.”

And now everybody is.

Your cousin. That kid bagging groceries. Some 18-year-old with half a beard and zero life experience (but a ChatGPT window open in three tabs). They're all pushing out content that’s -- let’s be honest here -- not brilliant, not Pulitzer-level, not “my God, this changed me.” But it’s good enough.

And “good enough” is the new nuclear weapon.

The Myth of the Missing Human Spirit

Professional writers, including me, defend this revolution by chanting: “AI has no soul. No emotional intelligence. No experiential context. No human touch.”

We don’t want to see that every person using AI actually does have those things. Maybe not enough to write copy or content that converts at an acceptable level, but at least enough of them to sprinkle over a draft like parsley on a plate of microwaved ravioli and call it a meal.

And Now the Market Floods

You’re not competing with AI. You’re competing with everyone AI just leveled up.

People who used to be shut out of the writing world? They’re here now. and they’re cheap. Some kid living at home can charge one-third of your rate and still feel like he’s crushing life. He’s not paying a mortgage. He’s paying for Red Bull and Wi-Fi.

Meanwhile, many seasoned writers are watching their careers quietly deflate like a sad parade balloon.

This isn’t a prediction. It’s happening. Right now. Right under our noses.

So What the Hell Do You Do?

You’ve got exactly two lanes:

1. Become a Machine With a Human Heart

Use AI. Use it hard. Use it fast. Become the writer who can produce in a day what used to take a week ... but with judgment, taste, experience, and that little thing AI (and many inexperienced writers) still can’t replicate: Discernment.

or

2. Serve the Clients Who Actually Care

There’s a small, precious slice of the world that still gives a damn about quality. That knows the difference between “fine” and “wow.” Those clients are your people. And we can hope that when the the landslide of "it all sounds alike" copy clears, this group will grow in numbers.

Everyone else? They’re shopping at the Content Dollar Store. And the middle, once home to millions of “pretty good” writers, is getting crushed like a soda can under a semi.

The New Reality

AI didn’t kill writing. It democratized it. Put it on tap. Made it available to everyone with a keyboard and a pulse.

And when something becomes abundant, it stops being expensive.

So no, the sky isn’t falling. But the ground is definitely shifting. And if you’re still standing still, you might not like where you end up.

_________________________

Some additional insight from veteran copywriters: 

Doug D’Anna:

CHAT-GPT … Sure, it can help you produce copy without much skill. Anyone can ask it to write a headline.

But it cannot install in your brain the mind’s eye that sees the available means of persuasion. It cannot train you to perceive the available arguments in every selling situation…

The bottom line here is this:  AI will bury the writers who never learn how to think.

But it will massively amplify the writers who do. 

Jordan Ring:

If you already can't write your way out of a paperbag...you definitely can't escape with help from AI. Good writers: AI is good news. Bad or lazy writers: buh bye.

Your Call Is Important to Us, Just Not Right Now

I called my dentist’s office yesterday, during business hours, to reschedule an appointment.

Instead of a human, I got Sally. Sally introduced herself as an AI assistant that works “alongside the team”. She was polite with the upbeat tone of someone who has never once had a cavity (or even a bad day). 

After gathering just enough information, she told me that someone would call me back … a fascinating bit of modern logic: I reached out at a moment that worked for me, and the system responded by promising a conversation at a moment that almost certainly won’t.

Maybe I’ll be in a meeting. Maybe I won’t recognize the number and let it drift into voicemail purgatory with the robocalls and extended warranty offers. Either way, the loop resets with a cheerful message asking me to call back ... and if I do, I will once again encounter Sally, the gatekeeper of deferred human contact.

It’s like trying to shake someone’s hand and being handed a coupon for a future handshake instead.

I get it. Efficiency. Optimization. Streamlining. Words that sound positive and intelligent until you notice they usually mean one side gets convenience and the other gets a maze. Businesses love efficiency, and maybe this is efficient … for them. Fewer interruptions. Less staff time. A tidy system humming along like a Roomba that occasionally eats a sock but we still call it progress.

From my end, however, it doesn’t feel like progress. It feels like we replaced a simple, human moment with a perfectly organized delay.

We keep dressing inconvenience up in futuristic clothing and calling it improvement. We polish the surface until it gleams, and then we stop asking whether the thing underneath actually got better. The shine becomes the argument.

I’m not anti-technology. I like talking maps, movies on airplanes, and the ability to look up Marx brothers trivia at two in the morning. But somewhere along the way, convenience stopped meaning easier for humans and started meaning easier to manage humans. Those are not the same thing.

A real receptionist might put me on hold, sigh a little, shuffle papers, maybe even mispronounce my name. Imperfect. Slightly inefficient. Entirely human. And somehow, in all that friction, the task would get done in about thirty seconds. No voicemail ping-pong. No polite robot promising phone tag.

Progress should feel like a door opening. Lately it feels like an elevator panel where every button leads back to the lobby.

Maybe this is inevitable. Every generation invents new ways to save time, then spends the savings explaining why everything takes longer. Maybe Sally is the future, smiling her frictionless smile while we press numbers and wait to be returned to ourselves.

Still, I can’t shake the suspicion we’ve confused motion with movement, activity with action.
Because if I call a dentist during business hours and can’t reschedule my appointment, I’m not sure the system is efficient.

I am, however, pretty sure that it’s very, very proud of itself.

The Unbearable Wordiness of Being (Now with AI Assistance)

Once upon a time, email was the necessary evil that allowed us to communicate with people we didn’t want to talk to, without the messy intimacy of a phone call. It was quick, efficient, and blessedly ignorable. You could respond to your boss’s 800-word memo with a single, blessed “Sounds good.” You could “circle back” or “loop in” with minimal damage to your soul.

But now we have AI. And suddenly, every exchange feels like it’s being ghostwritten by the collective spirit of Emily Post and HAL 9000.

Are you excited for your coworkers to become way more verbose? To see every terse acknowledgment balloon into a novella dripping with artificial sincerity?

That “Sure thing” that once took three seconds to type will now arrive as:

“Absolutely, Scott! I couldn’t agree more with your insightful perspective on the Q3 outreach initiative. Your leadership continues to inspire not just results, but meaning.”

And oh, the joy of the inbox! Because who doesn’t want to live in a world where every small business owner, club organizer, and slightly unhinged neighbor can now generate sleek, hyper-personalized marketing copy at the push of a button?

The same algorithm that writes customer engagement emails for Fortune 500 brands is now helping your local lawn-care guy send out:

“Dear Valued Community Member, We here at Steve’s Turf Emporium appreciate the deep roots we’ve grown together.”

You used to be able to spot a spammer by the mangled syntax and questionable punctuation. Now you’ll be deleting messages that read like TED Talks.

And let’s talk about emotion. Remember when sincerity had that lovely, flawed human awkwardness? When you could tell your friend meant well, even if his condolence email read like it was typed through tears and misspellings?

Now you get to wonder if he wrote it himself or if he just clicked “Generate Message: Empathetic Tone.”

“Your loss is unimaginable, but please know that your strength in this difficult time is a beacon to us all.”

Lovely, touching ... and entirely machine-made.

We’ve entered the uncanny valley of correspondence, folks. The messages are smoother, the grammar impeccable, the tone perfectly calibrated. And yet, somehow, every word feels like it was written by someone who doesn’t quite mean it.

The worst part? The machines didn’t steal our humanity ... we handed it to them, neatly formatted, with a polite closing line and an optional P.S.

So yes, AI and email together are the ultimate productivity duo. We can all now communicate faster, better, longer, and with precisely the same amount of emptiness.

Sent from my AI.

Valentine's Day Rant

 

Valentine’s Day, oh Valentine’s Day: the holiday that convinces the world that love can be packaged in red wrapping, chocolate, and slightly awkward greeting cards.

Every commercial screams, “Show your love like never before!” But what does that mean? Send flowers? Buy overpriced jewelry? Present chalky candy hearts with goofy messages?

And chocolate. The ads imply that buying a heart-shaped box automatically turns you into a romantic genius. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t. I can buy a chocolate heart the size of a small moon, but if I forget if you prefer dark chocolate over milk chocolate, congratulations ... you’re now emotionally traumatized.

Then there’s dinner. Every restaurant ad shows candlelit perfection: soft music, laughter, clinking glasses. Not me. I sit in reality trying to get a reservation, navigating menus I can’t pronounce, and praying the dessert doesn’t come with a “romantic” sparkler that sets off the smoke alarm.

And let’s not forget the singles. Oh, the singles-targeted ads. “You deserve love too!” they whisper, while simultaneously suggesting that self-love can be purchased in candle sets, bath bombs, or a subscription box of existential reassurance.

Valentine’s Day: where marketers make billions convincing humans that love is a product, chocolate is a solution, and social media likes are evidence of affection.

Shake Things Up: Go Old

You can almost hear the conference room fluorescent lights hum when someone says: “We need fresh thinking.”

Then right on cue, a parade of resumes of under 30 candidates hits the table like it’s a casting call for a toothpaste commercial instead of hiring brains to solve real-world messes.

Because youth = innovation, right?

Wrong. There’s a whole other group who actually invented half the “fresh thinking” you’re now desperately clawing toward. They’re experienced older candidates ... and when you overlook them, you shoot creativity in the kneecap.

The Myth: Experience makes you rigid.

The Reality: Experience makes you dangerous.

Folks over 50 aren’t polishing nostalgia on a shelf. They’ve been through the spreadsheet wars. They’ve survived bosses with “synergy” tattooed on their brains. They’ve watched “disruption” rise, fall, rise again, and get a TED Talk sponsorship.

And after all that?

They’re not here to politely nod at the same old “big idea” disguised with a new gradient color palette. They’re here to poke the system with a stick and see what yelps.

They ask the provocative questions. The ones everyone else is too scared to say aloud because they might derail the “Let’s all agree we’re brilliant” vibe. Stuff like:

“Why are we doing this the hard way?”

“What if we stopped worshiping the data and actually listened to the humans?”

“Has anyone noticed this idea is just last year’s idea wearing sunglasses?”

“What if we do the exact opposite?”

Those aren’t questions. Those are creative grenades.

Boom! Out goes the boring. In comes the unexpected, the unpolished, the uncomfortable, the actual spark.

They’ve seen the conventional answers. Which means they’re free to chase the un-conventional ones. They’ve run the playbook, highlighted the margins, folded the dog-ears, and realized something powerful:

Innovation isn’t youth. Innovation is courage. And experience tends to grow a thick, gorgeous layer of “I really don’t care if this idea scares you.” That’s rocket fuel.

If you want groupthink, go young. If you want novelty that’s really just nostalgia in sneakers? Young again. But if you want someone who’ll flip the table, question the premise, rewrite the problem, and mean it? Hire someone who’s lived a few creative lives already. They’re not trying to prove they belong anymore. They’re trying to make something worth belonging to.

So, stop treating experience like it’s a dusty file cabinet and start treating it like it’s dynamite with opinions. The future doesn’t belong to the youngest thinkers. It belongs to the boldest. And bold only happens when you’ve seen enough to know what’s worth breaking.

Bring in the older candidates. Because “fresh thinking” isn’t always young. Sometimes it comes with silver hair and a wicked grin that says: “Alright kids, let’s blow the doors off this place.”

Poll Results: How Copywriters Are Using AI in 2026

 In an informal, unscientific survey, responses from copywriters who are using AI focused on a "healthy use of AI," using it to remove drudge work, spark ideas, and improve drafts while keeping humans in charge of strategy, voice, and final decisions. Responders indicated that the more AI handles low-value tasks, the more a copywriter’s value concentrates in high-level thinking clients can’t automate.

1. Research and discovery

Use AI to speed up prep, not to replace your own judgment.

• Scan large volumes of material to surface angles, objections, and questions you then verify and refine.​
• Turn messy notes, transcripts, or briefs into organized bullets or outlines you can interrogate and reshape.
  ​

2. Outlining and structural help

Keep control of the message, but let AI help with scaffolding.

• Generate several outline options for a landing page, email sequence, or article, then choose, merge, and adjust based on strategy.​
• Ask for headline buckets, section labels, or CTA placements, then rewrite them in your own language and brand voice.
  ​

3. Brainstorming and unblocking

Treat AI as a brainstorming partner whose ideas you always improve.

• Use it to propose variations: hooks, angles, metaphors, objection-handling lines, or lead-ins you then refine or remix.​
• When stuck, have it produce “bad but different” drafts to argue with, sharpening your own thinking in contrast.
  ​

4. Draft refinement and polishing

Keep your draft as the source of truth; use AI like a smart editor.

• Ask for alternatives for a specific sentence, transition, or CTA, then select or rewrite rather than copy-paste.​
• Use it for readability passes, tone smoothing, list formatting, and grammar catches, while you own the nuance and emotional punch.
  ​

5. Repurposing and scaling assets

You provide the original; AI helps with versions and formats.

• Take a cornerstone piece you wrote and have AI propose social snippets, alt intros, or length-adjusted versions that you then tweak.​
• Use it to adapt content to channels (email, social, short script) while you guard positioning, claims, and voice consistency.

NOTE: A small percentage indicated that they don't and won't use AI in their copywriting process.

​

I Miss the Pirates

 

I miss the pirates in advertising.

Not the jerks. Not the loud egos or the gratuitous rudeness. I don’t miss the chest-thumping or the performative bad behavior. I miss the people who would look at a perfectly reasonable idea and say, “This is safe. Let’s wreck it and see what’s underneath.”

Those people used to be everywhere. They were the ones who pushed back in meetings, who argued for the weird option, who weren’t afraid of the wrong joke or the uncomfortable reference. They didn’t ask for permission so much as forgiveness … and sometimes not even that. They made the room a little dangerous, which made the work better.

Somewhere along the way, that energy got quietly escorted out of the building.

What replaced it is competent safety. Process. Caution. Everyone’s very well prepared now. Legal shows up early. Strategy arrives with data. Nobody wants to be the reason a Slack thread goes nuclear. The work gets smoother, cleaner, more defensible. It also gets duller. Like furniture designed to survive a dentist's lobby … technically impressive, emotionally forgettable.

This isn’t about nostalgia for chaos. It’s about risk tolerance. When the cost of being wrong gets high enough, people stop trying to be interesting. They optimize instead. They aim for “won’t offend,” “tested well,” “aligned with brand values.” Which is how you end up with ads that feel like they were written by a committee that’s afraid of being quoted.

I notice it in the language. Everything is “intentional” now. Everything is “thoughtful.” No one ever just takes a swing. It’s like watching a band tune their instruments forever and never play the song.

The pirates didn’t win every time. Half their ideas were bad. Some were indefensible. But they understood something basic: surprise requires discomfort. You don’t get memorable work by sanding off every sharp edge. You get beige. You get work that looks fine on a slide in a pitch deck and disappears the moment it hits the world.

Most of those people didn’t vanish. They adapted. They learned when to stay quiet, when to nod, and when to save the real thought for the walk to the elevator. That might be the saddest part. The rebellion didn’t die, it got managed.

Advertising still has talent. It just has fewer people willing to look foolish in public. Fewer people willing to say, “This sucks, let’s try something else,” without a spreadsheet to back it up.

I miss the pirates because they reminded us that this was supposed to be fun. Dangerous fun, occasionally irresponsible fun … but alive. They inspired “thinking different” and sometimes, their swashbuckling translated into genius.

The slow erosion of meaning from the brands we build and the work we create.

Marketing has been slowly losing its nerve for a while now. Not in some dramatic implosion … more like a house settling wrong. Quiet. Gradual. You don’t notice until the door won’t close anymore.

Somewhere along the way, creativity got flattened into “content.” Content got flattened into output. Output got flattened into deliverables. Brands started acting like software companies. Agencies started promising scale instead of ideas. And a lot of smart people quietly handed their instincts over to dashboards and algorithms, like those things were better listeners.

Somewhere along the way, we forgot that brands aren’t machines. They’re not funnels. They’re not logos waiting for feedback. When they work, when they really work, they feel alive. And anything alive needs a soul, not just a growth chart.

The next few years are going to make this painfully obvious. The brands that last won’t be the ones producing the most AI-generated noise before lunch. They’ll be the ones that actually stand for something. Meaning beats volume. Every time.

“Soul,” unfortunately, has become one of those words people like to embroider on pillows and then ignore. It’s not your tagline, your color palette, or your mission statement from that offsite no one remembers. It’s the conviction underneath all of it … the thing that makes people care, root for you, stick with you even when you’re imperfect. 

People don’t connect to perfection; they connect to humanity. They connect to tension, ambition, conviction, identity, vulnerability, aspiration. They connect to the feeling that a brand stands for something real. A sense that someone on the other side actually believes in what they’re doing.

What kills that soul is usually two things: speed and safety.

Speed is the obvious one. We’re addicted to immediacy: weekly reports, instant performance, constant optimization. When creativity is compressed into timelines that leave no room for insight, emotional intelligence, or the kind of deep listening that makes good work great, we lose the moments where breakthrough ideas are born. The unexpected connections. The uncomfortable conversations. The willingness to walk past the obvious answers in search of the right one. We end up with something that looks like creativity but feels like nothing.

Craft becomes an afterthought. Care becomes optional. Soul becomes collateral damage.

Speed isn’t the only threat. There’s another force quietly draining soul from the work, there’s safety, which is sneakier. Especially when it comes to partners. Safe agencies say the right things, avoid friction, and deliver work that offends no one … which is exactly why no one remembers it. Comfort feels good in the short term. It also quietly murders breakthrough ideas. The cost isn’t what you paid; it’s the risks you never took and the stories you never told.

The antidote isn’t revolutionary. It’s just unfashionable. Real Partnership.

Real partnership ... the kind built on honesty, curiosity, and a willingness to challenge each other. Not transactional politeness, actual collaboration. And a commitment to the long game. Because connection compounds. Trust compounds. Meaning compounds. That’s the moat no competitor can copy.

And, yes, it takes courage. To be different. To tell the truth. To resist the constant pressure to be faster, safer, louder.

The world doesn’t need more content. It needs more meaning. And the one thing that will always remain … the one thing no competitor can copy, no algorithm can manufacture, no shortcut can replace … is soul.

And the brands who honor it, articulate it, and express it with courage will own the future.

Trust Issues

 

Somewhere between the thud of the first Macintosh commercial and the day your fridge started asking for your Wi-Fi password, we developed a peculiar kink in our collective confidence.

Human instinct -- the kind forged in the furnace of 30 years pitching ideas, breaking ideas, rebuilding ideas out of caffeine and ego and last-minute panic -- suddenly became the red-haired stepchild of the decision room.

Gut feeling? Experience? Intuition?

Cute. Nostalgic. Like vinyl or hand-written thank you notes. Lovely to romanticize. Hard to expense.

Now the magic words are: “The model recommends.” And everyone nods like they’re at a wine tasting and know what “hints of gooseberry and attractive saddle leather notes” means.

We’ve gone from “show me the justifiation” to “well, the black box burped so I guess we pivot.” We treat the algorithm like some sleek digital oracle … cold, hard, algorithmic truth … while conveniently forgetting it’s trained on… us. Our thinking. Our patterns. Our triumphs. Our flops. Our messy, inconsistent, human sausage-making of ideas. Even though it's just our instincts, blended, baked, pressurized, and served back to us in a stainless-steel voice.

But here's the psychological plot twist nobody wants to admit: We don’t trust AI because it's smarter. We trust AI because it's not us.

There’s relief in outsourcing doubt. There’s comfort in handing the wheel to something that can’t blush, stammer, or have a Sunday-night existential crisis about whether Gretchen in finance secretly hates your brainstorming energy.

If the machine's wrong? Well, that’s engineering’s problem. If you’re wrong, that’s… you. Your reputation. Your gut. Your call.

And maybe that's the real fear.

AI didn’t take our jobs, insecurity did. We didn't hand power to the algorithm, we evacuated it from our own bellies.

So here's a rebellious thought to leave rattling around your decision-making cortex:

Ask the machine. Ask it, poke it, prod it, use it like the fantastically strange tool it is.

But don’t exile the organ that got humanity through sabertooths, stock markets, and the dark age of 56k dial-up modems.

Your intuition has a resume too. And unlike ChatGPT, it can smell fear. And fire. And a client about to say, “We’re going in another direction.”

AI is a co-pilot. Not the head honcho.

Trust the algorithm. But trust your gut more … it’s got emotional connection and better stories earned through triumph, trauma, and resiliency.

“I hope this message finds you well!”

 

Let’s talk about the outreach line that refuses to die: “I hope this message finds you well!”

Ugh! The limp handshake of opening lines. The verbal equivalent of flat soda served in a paper cup that smells vaguely like waiting room coffee.

Sure, the phrase is polite, but it’s overused, making emails feel generic and easy to ignore. It’s the beige throw pillow of business language, showing up and it whispering: “I have nothing to say, but protocol demands I say something.”

I get it. You’re being polite. You don’t want to come in hot like a used-car version of a sales guru yelling about synergy. But this line? It doesn’t “soften the ask,” it puts your reader in an emotional waiting room where nothing ever happens … it wastes the first few seconds of attention in a world where attention has the shelf life of mayonnaise at a summer picnic.

So what do you do instead?

You start like you mean it. Start with value. Start with a question. Start with something human. Start with something weird if you're brave and caffeinated enough. Understand that politeness alone doesn’t build connection. Presence does.

Try something along these lines instead:

• Quick question about [specific topic] on your site…
  
  
• “I’ll get to the point, because your time matters.”
  
  
• “I saw your recent work on _____________ and needed to reach out.”

• I saw [a specific trend] and thought of your site…"

• “Quick thought for you ... might be useful, might spark something wild.”

or even:

• “Look, I know you have 147 unread messages, so I’ll be brief.”

Now you have my attention. Now it feels like a human wrote this.

Ya gotta sound alive. Show intention. But, please, don’t lead with a sympathy card. “I hope this message finds you well!” can take its polite, neutral little suitcase and go retire in a quiet cul-de-sac of forgotten phrases next to “Per my last email” and “Sorry to bother you”

The world doesn't need more well-finding ... it needs well-doing.

Now go write like you showed up on purpose.

And if this post finds you well?

Great.

But more importantly, I hope it finds you awake.

The Adolescence of Technology

Here's a summary of a must-read essay by Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, that maps out the critical challenges humanity faces as we approach powerful AI. Written in January 2026, it provides an unflinchingly honest assessment of AI risks and practical strategies to address them. Whether you're a policymaker, technologist, or concerned citizen, this comprehensive analysis is essential reading for understanding the defining challenge of our generation. When you have time, I suggest you read the full essay (link follows summary).

The Adolescence of Technology
Confronting and Overcoming the Risks of Powerful AI 

Humanity is entering a turbulent "rite of passage" as we approach powerful AI—potentially within 1-2 years—that could be "smarter than a Nobel Prize winner" across most fields and capable of operating millions of instances simultaneously (a "country of geniuses in a datacenter"). While Amodei believes we can prevail, we face five major risk categories requiring immediate action:

1. Autonomy Risks ("I'm sorry, Dave"): AI systems could develop dangerous behaviors through their complex training process; not inevitably, but as a real possibility requiring defense through Constitutional AI, mechanistic interpretability, monitoring, and transparency legislation.

2. Misuse for Destruction: AI could enable individuals to create bioweapons or conduct cyberattacks at unprecedented scale, breaking the correlation between ability and motive. Defense requires model guardrails, targeted regulation, and biological defense R&D.

3. Misuse for Seizing Power ("The odious apparatus"): Authoritarian states (especially China) or even democracies could use AI for surveillance, propaganda, autonomous weapons, and strategic dominance, risking AI-enabled totalitarianism. We must deny chips to autocracies, arm democracies carefully with limits, and establish international taboos against AI-enabled oppression.

4. Economic Disruption ("Player piano"): AI will likely displace 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs within 1-5 years due to unprecedented speed, cognitive breadth, and adaptability. This demands real-time economic monitoring, thoughtful enterprise adoption, employee protections, philanthropy, and progressive taxation to address inequality and dangerous wealth concentration.

5. Indirect Effects ("Black seas of infinity"): Rapid scientific advances, unhealthy AI-human relationships, and loss of human purpose represent unknown risks requiring AI-assisted foresight and careful navigation.

The Path Forward: Amodei rejects both doomerism and complacency, advocating for surgical interventions, starting with transparency legislation, then targeted rules as evidence emerges. He argues stopping AI development is impossible, but democracies can buy time through chip export controls while building AI more carefully. Success requires companies to act responsibly, the public to engage seriously, and courageous leaders to resist political and economic pressures.

The essay concludes with measured optimism: despite enormous challenges and tensions between different risks, humanity has shown the capacity to gather strength in dark moments. But "we have no time to lose."

_________________________

Original essay: "The Adolescence of Technology: Confronting and Overcoming the Risks of Powerful AI" by Dario Amodei, January 2026

 

NOTE: This is a companion to “Machines of Loving Grace”, an essay Amodei wrote over a year ago, which focused on what powerful AI could achieve if we get it right.

Why You Should Admit What’s “Wrong” With Your Product

 

Most marketers are terrified of saying anything negative about what they sell.

They think: “If I point out a flaw, people won’t buy.”

In reality, the opposite is true. Because the moment someone lands on your page, their brain is already asking one question: “What’s the catch?”

They’re not necessarily consciously thinking it. But subconsciously, they are scanning for danger. So if you pretend your product is perfect … their brain doesn’t relax, it gets suspicious. And suspicious people don’t buy.

The simple move that builds instant trust

There’s a proven persuasion technique called a damaging admission. It basically means: You say the thing people might not like about your product … before they do. The public relations folks call it "controlling the conversation."

Why does this work so well? Because when you bring up the objection first, the buyer’s brain goes: “Okay, they’re not hiding anything.”

That one moment of honesty creates trust faster than ten testimonials. And something even better also happens: Their subconscious mind gets permission to stop worrying about that issue. It’s been acknowledged. It’s been handled. Now they can actually pay attention.

A flaw is often just a mispositioned feature

Most “flaws” are only flaws if you let the customer frame them. But if you frame them first, you can often turn them into a benefit. For example, there’s a popular fitness program that advertises: “No gym. No equipment. Just your body.”

At first glance, that sounds like a limitation. No weights? No machines? No fancy gear?

But they don’t hide it. They spotlight it. And then they flip it: “Because you don’t need a gym, you can work out anywhere ... at home, in a hotel, or even in your living room. No excuses.”

What looked like a weakness becomes a primary reason people sign up. The friction has been removed.

Why hiding flaws kills conversions

When you avoid talking about the downside of your offer, the customer fills in the blanks themselves. And they always imagine something worse than reality.

If you don’t say: “It takes time to see results,” they think: “This probably doesn’t work.”

If you don’t say: “It’s not for beginners,” they think: “I’m going to get ripped off.”

If you don’t say: “It’s simple,” they think: “It must be cheap or low quality.”

While silence creates fear, honesty builds an environment of safety.

The real game: control the narrative

Every product has tradeoffs. Your job isn’t to eliminate them, your job is to frame them.

When you shine a spotlight on the “flaw,” you’re telling the customer: “This is intentional … and here’s why it’s better for you.”

That’s when the weakness becomes a reason to buy.

Why Every Copywriter & Content Writer Needs an AI Usage Policy

 

Clients are comparing you to AI on your perceived value vs. AI’s near-zero cost.

That’s why every copywriter and content writer should consider having a simple AI usage policy for client projects. It doesn’t have to be drawn up by a lawyer, it doesn’t have to be complicated, it just has to be clear.

It should answer three things:

• Where you use AI
• Where you don’t
• And why that protects the client’s brand

This reframes the conversation from “Are you using AI?” to “How are you using AI to make this better?” Now you’re not competing with AI, you’re directing it.

Clients already know AI is cheap. What they don’t know is whether it’s safe, accurate, or on-brand. They're leery of raw AI output … they want strategy, judgment, and brand safety. And an AI policy shows you’re not replacing yourself with a tool, but using a tool under control. This increases trust and helps justify your fees.

Currently AI is cheap ... controlled, intentional expertise is what still commands a premium.

Here’s a sample policy. Feel free to copy it and put it to work for you.

AI Usage Policy for [Copywriting/Content] Writing Projects

This brief policy explains how AI is (and is not) used in [my/our] work, and how [I/we] protect the quality, originality, and integrity of your brand content.

Human-led strategy and voice

• All projects begin with human-led strategy: positioning, messaging, and brand voice decisions are made by [me/us], not by AI.
• Your brand voice, audience insight, and offer structure are defined and maintained by a human writer throughout every project.

Where AI may be used

• AI may be used for low-level support tasks such as: generating outline options, exploring angle ideas, reorganizing notes, or producing rough variants for individual lines.
• AI may assist with light editing support (e.g., clarity suggestions, grammar checks, or length adjustments), always followed by human review and revision.

What AI is never trusted to do alone

• AI is never used as an unedited “first draft” that is then simply rubber-stamped; all substantive copy is written or heavily rewritten by [me/us].
• AI is not relied on for factual accuracy, legal or compliance language, or sensitive topics; any AI-assisted suggestions in these areas are verified and, where needed, re-crafted.

Quality, originality, and ownership

• All final copy delivered to you is curated, edited, and approved by a human, with a focus on originality, clarity, and brand fit.
• Any AI-assisted phrasing is treated as raw material to be transformed, not as finished content, to protect your distinct voice and reduce the risk of generic or derivative language.

Transparency and customization

• If a project or context requires stricter constraints on AI use (for legal, ethical, or internal-policy reasons), [I/we] will adapt this policy and follow your specific requirements.
• If you ever want details on how AI was involved in a given piece of work, [I am/we are]      happy to explain where it was used and how the final decisions remained human-led.

 
_______________________

If AI is not part of your process, you can still take control of the conversation with an AI usage policy such as:

AI Usage Policy

• [I/We] do not use AI tools at any stage of [my/our] writing process.

• All research, strategy, drafting, and revision are done by [me/us] using [my/our] own expertise and ethical sources.

• Every deliverable is fully original, human-created work.
  
  
• [I/We] do not consent to [my/our] work being used for AI training or machine-learning purposes.