Can you use AI to write without AI doing any of the writing? Yes and here is one way to do that.
Zach and I meet every week to plan material for the blog, the podcast, the newsletter, and other written work. No doubt, it is the most enjoyable part of my work week. A few months ago, we started recording our meetings and uploading the transcripts into ChatGPT Edu to be analyzed with a custom prompt. The goal: quickly build to-do lists, assign action items for each of us, comb the transcript for potentially fruitful ideas, and serve as an archive. So far, for these tasks it's been fairly useful.
Often our meetings evolve into mini-podcasts, where we have the freedom to just talk openly and candidly about various AI topics. We used to end meetings saying “Wow I wish we recorded that one.” Not any more, now we have the recordings.
Recently, we stumbled upon a new workflow that we thought was good enough that we wanted to share it with others. The starting place: an idea we thought was so good we wanted to get it written up and published as quickly as possible. Next, we had a 40 minute conversation so rich and detailed that we could probably have published it as an Unfixed episode. But for this topic, we really wanted a published piece of writing. So, I had a flash of inspiration. I took the transcript and wrote a prompt for ChatGPT Edu asking it to build an outline. I’m a big write-by-outline person.
The prompt, offered below, instructed ChatGPT Edu to follow the structure of our argument, pull direct quotes from the two of us that we could use as seed sentences, suggest where direct evidence or supporting links would be beneficial, and importantly do not write anything for us. Within seconds we had an outline.
Then we got to writing. We went from outline to full 3000 word draft in a couple of weeks, which is only impressive for us when we factor in every other professional and personal obligation we work around.
With all the debate about authorship and authenticity swirling around these days–you can listen to Unfixed Ep. 44–our experiment here with AI assisted production points to a productive co-working relationship with LLMs (you might say it is the Assistant for the Rest of Us). Generative AI, including OtterAI for transcription, handled backend work that allowed us to express our ideas and creativity, based upon an AI-assisted outline generated from our real world 40 minute conversation. We think this has potential and encourage you to try this out, solo or with others.
Workflow:
Idea→record conversation→AI transcript→write AI prompt→AI outline→revise→write→edit→publish (🤞)
Prompt recipe:
Zach and I are inspired to write a new piece tentatively called [redacted]. I am attaching our latest meeting analysis (done by ChatGPT), the meeting transcript, and our very first piece we published on Melts into Air, which we want to serve as a template/model for this new piece. What I need is an outline based on these resources that includes suggestions of what can go where, what more we need to reference, and who we need to cite and where. Use the transcript to pull direct quotes from me or Zach that we can use as seed sentences. Do not offer to write anything. This is an outline we will use to quickly write the piece.