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Comment by simonw | Hacker News Reader

I'm a big fan of writing as a crucial skill for thinking.

But I wonder if this concern of AI-assisted writing harming this will actually play out the way people think.

Until quite recently, if you wanted to write music you had to learn an instrument first: needing to learn piano or guitar or similar to a point where you could compose your own music was a pretty big obstacle to getting started.

Now, thanks to software like GarageBand, you don't need to develop those skills first. You can jump straight to the fun bit.

I wonder if the act of sweating over word choice and spelling and grammar in order to explore your ideas might turn out to work in a similar way?

Maybe we'll find out that people who didn't spend years developing their fundamental writing skills will be able to excel in a new, LLM-assissted world where ability to write well is no longer a pre-requisite to using writing to explore, develop and share their ideas.

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> Now, thanks to software like GarageBand, you don't need to develop those skills first. You can jump straight to the fun bit.

It might just be me, but I find it weird that one would consider the act of actually playing music not to be precisely the fun bit.

Some might even say that an analysis of the compositions by those who took up music writing after the advent of Garageband etc. proves the harm of such tools.

I think your music example actually proves the original point. I would argue the average quality of (popular) music has declined in the wake of new technology. The lack of musical knowledge has led to undifferentiated, simplistic musicianship in modern songs. If artists were forced to learn to play an instrument they would ultimately produce more sophisticated work. The lower barrier to entry is a disservice to their musical development and artistic ceiling. The sad part is we don't even realize what we're missing. Who is writing songs at the level of Bohemian Rhapsody these days? I would genuinely be very happy to know.

I agree that much (though not all) of "mainstream" music has become shallow, and I also agree that people making less music on their own has contributed to this - although the latter, I think, has cultural factors too, and in societies where e.g. singing is more common, I think the appreciation for art is still a bit different.

But there's still tons of absolutely amazing music by skilled artists, you just have to venture off the mainstream path a bit. I don't know your exact tastes, so it's hard to recommend anything specific. But if you're saying "Bohemian Rhapsody", the genre of progressive rock is still very much alive, if niche.

Yes! Thank you Simon. Takes like this will make this conversation a lot more well-rounded.

Of course writing is important. Writing free-hand on paper is beautiful. But so are the ideas, and the organization of the writing, and the style, and the plot and the characters.

Of course playing instruments is important, but I'm reminded of the Rick Rubin interview where he talks about how he's not a musician, and he doesn't know how to do any real technical music production.

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