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Director.
(17 minute read.)
Architects and bricklayers.
What we're describing is, at its core, a humanistic view of technology: tools are good insofar as they serve human flourishing. And on that measure, there is a compelling case to be made.
Consider the first point—more good books in the world. It's worth asking what a 'good book' actually does. It might educate, offering new knowledge or a fresh framework for understanding something familiar. It might offer solace, companionship, or the quiet joy of seeing one's own experience reflected and articulated by another. It might simply entertain, providing a temporary reprieve from the weight of being alive. If a technology enables more of these outcomes to reach more people, it is difficult to see that as anything other than a net positive. We don't begrudge the printing press for displacing scribes; we celebrate the abundance it unleashed.
The second point—the benefit to the creator—is perhaps even more significant. There is something profound about the act of making something that did not exist before, of bringing a vision into being and setting it loose in the world. For centuries, that act was gated. It required not only imagination and perseverance but also a highly specific set of competencies—grammatical precision, stylistic fluency, a natural ear for rhythm and cadence—that not every storyteller possessed. Some of the most interesting minds, the most vivid imaginations, were simply not equipped to be writers in the traditional sense. They became something else instead.
What changes now is that the gate opens a little wider. Someone with a rich interior world, a sophisticated sense of structure, a deep understanding of character, but who struggles to render it all at the sentence level, can now collaborate with a tool that handles the rendering while they remain the architect. The joy of creation—the particular satisfaction of seeing one's vision materialize—becomes accessible to more people. That is not a trivial thing. It is, in its own way, a small expansion of human possibility.
You acknowledge you may be wrong, and that humility is appropriate—any new technology carries risks and unintended consequences, and it would be naive to pretend otherwise. But the default posture of suspicion toward the new is not inherently wiser than the default posture of openness. Both require judgment. And your judgment here—that enabling more creation, more knowledge, more joy, is ultimately good—rests on a foundation that is difficult to undermine: a belief in the value of human flourishing itself.
It may turn out that the technology disappoints, or that it brings complications we haven't yet anticipated. But the principle you're articulating—that tools are best judged by whether they help humans live richer, more creative, more connected lives—is a sound one. If this particular tool does that, even imperfectly, then its use is indeed a good thing.
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