Copywriters detail how AI is affecting their jobs, with some noticing a new line of work to make AI-generated text sound more human, a job that pays a lot less
If you're worried about how AI will affect your job, the world of copywriters may offer a glimpse of the future. X: @thomasgermain , @drantoniowrites , @carnage4life , @kristadiamond , @thomasgermain , @gloria_sin , @karishmajourno , @felicitycarter , @xn_angeles , @kcsixtyseven , @michaelmiraflor , @hkesvani , @thomasgermain , and @thomasgermain . Forums: r/technology See also Mediagazer X: Thomas Germain / @thomasgermain : New for @BBC, if you're worried about how AI will affect your job, here's a preview. I spent months on a deep look at the front lines of the AI wars: the world of copywriters No part of the labor market was more directly & immediately impacted by chatbots. Here's what I found 🧵 Antonio, PhD / @drantoniowrites : The future of work is using AI to solve the human worker problem so capitalists can keep more capital. https://www.bbc.com/... Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life : The BBC has a story about how 60 writers and editors who did content marketing for a tech company were reduced to a staff of one editor who edits articles and blog posts written by ChatGPT. This is an extreme example of how entire fields will be decimated. [image] Krista Diamond / @kristadiamond : Good and necessary read for all writers Thomas Germain / @thomasgermain : I spoke to a dozen copywriters who say they lost jobs as more and more clients switch to AI. Some of them discovered a new line of work, one that pays a lot less: Teaming up with the robots stealing their jobs to make AI's bad writing sound more human /2 https://www.bbc.com/... Gloria Sin / @gloria_sin : Stockholders/investors/bosses who try to convince you otherwise should be met with extreme skepticism, because most are itching to reduce headcount & costs in any way they can — they won't lose their jobs and are under pressure to implement this tech in the company, somehow. Karishma Vaswani / @karishmajourno : By 2024, the company laid off the rest of Miller's team, and he was alone. “All of a sudden I was just doing everyone's job,” Miller says. https://www.bbc.com/... Felicity Carter / @felicitycarter : I was sent a bunch of texts today by a friend, whose commercial rival has gone hard for AI blog posts. Honestly, don't bother. It's so obvious that it's generated by AI and fixing it takes so much work you might as well do it yourself. Christian Angeles / @xn_angeles : I've been tracking how AI has been changing everything we know and I will just say that it looks very grim. This was always meant as a means to replace people. Kieran Cunningham / @kcsixtyseven : Christ, this is depressing. Michael J. Miraflor / @michaelmiraflor : The quality of content marketing is going to get so much worse in the near term bc LLMs are not yet good enough to replace entire teams like this. It's madness. @hkesvani : Really fascinating thread and also why writing on the internet has generally gotten worse, with some pretty direct social effects! Thomas Germain / @thomasgermain : Copywriters told me their employers send them instructions on “how to write like a human” in order to avoid the appearance of using ChatGPT. Because those rules are always changing, writers told me it's a constant battle to prove your work wasn't done by a robot /4 Thomas Germain / @thomasgermain : It's not all bad, some copywriters love AI. But this is a glimpse of the future of work. For many of us, we're either going to spend a ton of extra time proving we're not using AI, or we'll be forced to add AI to our workflow as jobs get more mechanical less creative Forums: r/technology : AI took their jobs. Now they get paid to make it sound human See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
This report puts worker-level detail behind an earlier shift toward AI-generated material filling more of the web, as text generators expanded the supply of publishable content. It matters because copywriting shows how adoption can reduce demand for original drafting without eliminating human labor altogether.
The reported “humanizing” work also reflects a limitation visible in an earlier account of a writing model whose output often felt hollow or approximate. Human judgment remains needed, but the work is being repriced as an editing layer rather than commissioned authorship.
First-order effects
- Copywriters face lost assignments as clients use AI and chatbots for content production, reducing demand for their original drafts.
- Some displaced writers move into editing AI output to make it sound human, but at materially lower pay than conventional copywriting.
Second-order effects
- Content buyers can lower the cost of routine production by substituting AI drafts plus cheaper human revision for fully human-written work.
- Copywriters are pushed to differentiate around work where generic output is insufficient, while AI-generated content’s quality limits create an ongoing need for review and editing.
Third-order effects
- If this pattern persists, copywriting could split into a high-volume, low-margin AI-assisted editing tier and a smaller market for higher-value original work.
- The episode is an early example of the synthetic-supply paradox: more available content can erode unit prices even as the need to assess quality and distinctiveness remains.
The trend: Generative AI is shifting knowledge-work value from producing first drafts toward directing, verifying, and differentiating abundant machine-generated output.