The robot invasion has begun. ChatGPT, Bard – every day there's a new story about the latest, most sophisticated, AI writing marvels. Investors are hurling billions at machine learning. Companies are falling over themselves to integrate generative AI into their products. And technologists are proselytizing a bold future where sentient algorithms transform life on Earth. Meanwhile, human writers already have to take to the streets just to get a living wage.

For me, a human who loves writing and is lucky enough to do it for a job, this all feels pretty apocalyptic. I've been following AI news with a masochistic swirl of fascination and dread, like a dinosaur staring at the lovely flaming rock getting bigger and bigger in the night sky.

I’m sick of waiting around to get obliterated. If the AI meteor is coming for writers, I want to know how to avoid extinction. Or at least how to evolve into birds.

I’m not against technology. I love it. I need it. As a person with Stargardt’s Macular Dystrophy, I’d never be able to navigate L.A. without my iPhone and Uber. I’m genuinely curious to see what new doors AI will open. I’m also aware that new labor-saving inventions have always affected human jobs. I’m not fool-enough to think a little writer resistance will halt the gears of industry.

But I believe the change will take time. I believe the end result isn’t preordained. And I believe there’s a place for human writers if we fight for it.

I still have a lot of big questions. Will writing still be a career? Will it even be a hobby? Who or what will we be collaborating with? And who or what will be reading?

The Last Writers is my attempt to find the answers.

Whatever the future holds, I want to keep writing. I hope there are other people who want to keep writing too. If we work together, we can figure out how to survive. Maybe it's foolish, but one thing we can do that the machines can't is hope.

So consider this newsletter our doomsday prep for the writing apocalypse. We're going to study the emerging technologies. Stay one step ahead in our careers, and explore how and why humans can keep writing in the age of AI.

Subscribe now