With AI, I Can Become the Editor of my Dreams

When I harness the power of AI, I feel like I am the equal of David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker. I hand off assignments on whatever interests me at the moment they interest me and then I mark up the returns. If the stories don’t cut it right now but might contain a kernel I can use one day, I put them in my draft folder and return to them when inspiration strikes.
I usually follow my dad’s suggestion to choose the moment of excited interest to work on something and I then follow it, life willing, until either the idea is exhausted or I’m exhausted.
I study whatever I want, and then compare and contrast the work of Grok, ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude until I find a direction I love. Once I see that, I check to see if it has been done before. If it hasn’t, I blaze a new trail in human knowledge and that fills me with energy and enthusiasm and passion.
Gabriella Turnaturi is a fascinating Italian sociologist, but very little of her work has been translated into English. With AI, I can get the translations I need to write something valuable.
The different ways the different bots work is endlessly interesting to me and fertile ground for blog posts. Grok and ChatGPT (the most obsequious) generate an enormous amount of slop compared to Gemini and Claude, and I will drop them first, but they still contribute facts and analysis that doesn’t turn up on Gemini and Claude. I can’t imagine yet going without one of these big four (Grok will be the first to go). For example, I asked Claude how many times psychologist Allen Berger had been married. It did not know. Grok told me accurately four times and provided the supporting link.
AI is great, but it is only raw material in my hands. Even the best bots hallucinate. All of them operate under the constraints of big business. The more powerful the parties you answer to, the less interesting you can be. I don’t answer to anyone (that is an exaggeration in the pursuit of economy and truth to say I don’t do much coalition work). As of May 31, 2026, I’m still a better writer than any chat bot. No matter how precise my instructions, AI prose is always wordy and cliche ridden. I read the stuff and I look for the idea that inspires me. I write it up, and then run it back through AI to check for spelling, grammar, punctuation, flow and logical consistency. I ask AI to steelman opposing arguments. I ask AI to tell me how a disinterested stranger might read my essay. I ask AI tell me how specific communities might react to a post.
I notice something and then I ask AI if it reflects a larger pattern. I read a passage in a book and then ask AI how it stands up. Does it replicate? Do people understand the implications of this idea?
The argument that AI is bad because it gets things wrong and has limitations is pathetic. Name me a person, an institution, or a technology that doesn’t have flaws.
Reigning elites think that AI pushes the masses towards accepting elite opinion. I doubt. The masses are less malleable than their rulers believe. Yes, every technological revolution changes society, but not in predictable ways. With regard to their vital interests, people did not evolve to be gullible. AI hasn’t changed my opinions, it just helps me in how I express them. AI allows you to explore ideas outside the Overton Window. I cut through AI’s politically correct framing to get to unpopular truths.
The proof is in the pudding. How is this work landing with smart, accomplished people? One leading literary agent emailed me: “I read your homage to …and it was brilliant. [He] was one of my very first clients… He was my bulldog, nothing slipped by him – ever. Seeing your piece about him made my heart ache. I loved calling him, because he never started any call without saying something hilarious or over the top.”
Several academics told me that my essays summed up their life’s work better than they could have done on their own. One man told me he even agreed with my criticism.
I can only pull this off when I know what I am talking about. I can’t rely on AI to do the work, but I can rely on AI to help me do the work.
You can’t fact-check and logic-check AI at scale. You can’t just run the product of one AI by other AI bots and establish truth and merit. There’s often value in doing this, but it only helps modestly.
AI is like a smart friend. My smart friends aren’t gods, but they are often brilliant at certain things, and blind as bats at other things.
Few of my friends share my AI enthusiasm. I notice that broader opinion is about five-to-one against AI. Using AI codes as low status. One friend my age keeps repeating himself and when I point that out, he says, “Well, you say the same things over and over again, too. For example, you’re always raving about AI.”
I replied, “Yes, that’s right.” In my head, I thought, “I rave about AI for different reasons in different conversations because the field is constantly changing. I share about new applications of AI that weren’t there last month.”
I wonder why none of my friends are enthusiasts about almost anything. Perhaps I gravitate towards the level-headed because I know that I need that.