Episode #55
AI Was Supposed to Replace Writers. It Did the Opposite
In 2023, every consulting firm published the same forecast: AI was coming for writers first. Joe Lazer went the other way. He took paternity leave, went down the research rabbit hole, and came out believing the opposite — that AI would make storytellers more valuable, not less. People told him he was crazy. He wrote the book anyway. Three years later the AI companies are posting job listings for storytellers. This is a conversation about the skill that doesn't get automated, and what it costs you to hand it over. Joe explains the "inauthenticity tax" — why an AI-written email quietly damages you with the person who receives it, and why Paul Graham stopped reading them altogether. We get into why writing is thinking, and what happens to the people who stop doing it themselves. Then we spend a long stretch on kids, because we both have them. Why New York mocked its AI high school out of existence. Why the last round of "learn to code" advice left computer science graduates with a higher unemployment rate than art history majors. Why a chatbot that tells a middle schooler he's always right is a genuine danger. And what one AI-first school learned when it had to start hiring teachers back. Joe Lazer spent eight years at Contently building the content marketing industry. He writes The Art of the Zag with Shane Snow for more than 185,000 subscribers. His new book is Super Skill: Why Storytelling Is the Superpower of the AI Age, an Amazon #1 New Release. He also legally changed his last name to Lazer, and the story behind it is better than you would expect. Super Skill — the book: https://joelazer.com/superskill Joe's site and newsletter: https://joelazer.com Joe on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-lazer/ TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 Cold open — "Am I completely screwed?" 0:51 Why storytelling is everything in the age of AI 3:08 The skill that stays human 3:29 The Neanderthal who only ever talked to Steve 5:12 Dunbar's number, and how strangers build cities 6:11 What a good story does inside your brain 8:28 AI polls worse than the IRS 9:41 The inauthenticity tax 10:29 Paul Graham stopped reading emails written by AI 11:20 Writing is thinking, and the split already underway 14:05 Work slop and message slop 16:25 How to actually get better at telling stories 17:00 A three-year-old lives in a world of story 20:00 Relatability, ease, novelty, tension 21:21 Why The Bear works 24:35 Vonnegut's shapes of stories, later confirmed by AI 26:23 A word from Zapier 29:04 How he legally became Joe Lazer 33:33 New York mocked its AI high school out of existence 35:20 Art history majors are out-employing computer science majors 42:17 Why sycophantic chatbots are dangerous for kids 45:04 The AI-first school that had to hire teachers back 50:02 A word from Reach 51:15 The look a tutor gave a kid who lied about his homework 54:16 Language models versus world models 59:11 The Art of the Zag 1:01:24 Writing the book everyone said was wrong 1:04:50 AI companies are now hiring human storytellers 1:09:08 What makes art meaningful 1:17:32 Anthropic bought rare books, scanned them, destroyed them 1:19:07 The one lesson he'd pass down to his son 1:20:27 Where to find Joe SPONSORS: ⚡ Zapier — connect 8,000+ apps and build AI agents right inside ChatGPT: https://bit.ly/4xsNhIO Reach — free college admissions odds from any college's own published data: https://highschoolreach.com PODCAST INFO: ▶ Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@TheNickStandleaShow Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0YqBBneFsKtQ6Y0ArP5CXJ Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-nick-standlea-show/id1700331903 Website: https://nickstandlea.com As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Nick's Socials: Instagram: @nickstandlea X (Twitter): @nickstandlea TikTok: @nickstandleashow Facebook: @nickstandleapodcast Ask questions, Don't accept the status quo, And be curious. #podcast #thenickstandleashow #becurious #AI #storytelling #futureofwork
