Writing as multi-text curation, aka writing as DJing

This excellent piece from the Atlantic (Drive link to PDF) describes the author's process writing a fully AI novel. He used a ton of different tools, did the plotting himself, and had the AI not just write but revise, change tone, generate alternatives, etc. etc. Then he assembled the final product himself from all those components.

I think this is pretty plausible vision of how writing will be reshaped by AI. Anyone who's messed around with ChatGPT knows that it produces shit content right now. It'll get better, and formulaic tasks will be taken over—the AP apparently uses AI to generate reporting on game results, for instance—but creative work that requires bounded originality seems well outside what it can do, just by its nature. That includes fiction as well as drawing original insights from large or complex bodies of information (e.g. scientific articles, reports, white papers).

Curious what you all make of this—whether it's realistic, what it's missing, what it gets right.