Why writing an AI-assisted book was a total flop

Fun fact: The best-selling book I’ve ever published isn’t KNOWN or Marketing Rebellion. It’s a little book I wrote in 2014 called Social Media Explained.

I published a second edition of this bestselling book in 2018, so it was time for another refresh through a new edition. But mentally, I was difficult to get up for the challenge.

When I write a book, it takes everything out of me — mentally and even physically. So I was determined. There must be a better way. It was time to embrace Artificial Intelligence and use it for all it’s worth! I’m entering the new age of book writing. This will be my first AI-assisted book.

And so I began.

But after about a day of intense effort, I quit. Using AI to try to write a book was a total flop. Here’s why.

The AI-assisted book flop

Almost every publicly available LLM is a sophisticated word calculator programmed to interact with humans in the most efficient way possible. It’s like a puppy dog trying to please you. It scours its billions of data points — all created in the past — to assemble the answer with the highest probability of making you smile.

But I found the best average answer from the past creates a lousy book. If you want the best average answer from the past, use Google. It does a great job.

A great book requires insight — something you can get nowhere else. An insight is a personal…