Speaking is no substitute for writing… and thinking

Everyone’s Using This A.I. Dictation App That I Want to Murder With a Hammer

… Because writing, when it comes down to it, is a higher form of thinking. Writing takes time and editing and a deep level of commitment. Writing is a rigorous process to understand your own thoughts and then lay those thoughts out in a way that convinces or inspires or moves other people. But speaking is not that process. Speaking out loud can be tremendously useful when you need to deliver instructions or talk something out with another person or jot down a quick brainstorm while you are in the middle of washing your face in the bathroom or something.

We’ve been talking a lot about the so-called end of literacy, but the real problem isn’t that people don’t read — it’s that they do read and spend all day ferociously consuming words, but those words aren’t really written, not in the way that any writer would consider them written, because the words they’re reading are more like speaking. I wish I could italicize the word “really” in that last sentence. Italics really. Uh. Close enough, I guess.

I just got a notification from Wispr Flow congratulating me that I have written enough words with the software in just these few minutes here that I have “written 12 wedding vows.” Which, I mean, is kind of my point. Can you imagine if wedding vows were off-the-cuff speaking? Could we stop, soon, with the apps and programs that want to replace every facet of human thought with something more efficient, like there’s no value at all in … reflection? At this point I’m ready never to speak aloud ever again...

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/19/magazine/ai-dictation-app-wispr.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share