A common narrative is that AI/LLMs will make writing as a profession obsolete. We already see this in school and college, in which millions of students have taken to using chatbots to expedite the often tedious process writing essays, or for homework assistance, to the chagrin of teachers and administrators, who see now their roles as ‘AI detectors’ than educators. This has opened debate as to the value of a humanities education.
Dynomight asks, “Will the explainer post go extinct?” due to AI, and answers in the affirmative. Part of having a blog entails reading others’ blogs and articles. I have not observed this at all. Actually, the opposite: content production has surged in recent months. So in spite of LLMs, paradoxically or counterintuitively, content production has not suffered; in fact, it’s thriving. And I don’t mean automated content, but actual human-produced writing (or at least writing that passes for being human).
In late 2022, I set up pubstack.site, an RSS aggregator that parses recent links from a list of 40 blogs and arranges them chronologically, which I use for finding post ideas. I recall long stretches in 2023-2024 and early 2025 where there wasn’t much content. In recent months, as the AI debate has intensified, has seen a marked surge in content. Now my reading list is hopelessly backlogged. It’s not only because of major headlines such as Charlie Kirk’s murder or developments in AI, but just more content in general, and longer content. This is the exact opposite of predictions of LLMs leading to the demine of blog-style writing.
In October 2025, Paramount, the parent company of CBS, acquired theftp.com, run by Bari Weis, for a jaw-dropping $150 million, an unprecedented sum for a blog. Albeit, The Free Press is more of a media company than a personal blog, but still impressive. So much for LLMs making writing or blogs obsolete. If CBS or any other media organization could reproduce Bari’s writing and brand using AI or freelancers, surely they would and save $150 million? Evidently not.
And if AI is widely promised to make writing obsolete, and by extension, readers of long-form writing defect, Paramount’s purchase is a vote of confidence as to the sustainability of writing as a profession and the loyalty of readers. I am siding with Paramount here. The medium of long-from written content is not going anywhere, and, in fact, will thrive.
So why has content production surged? First, I think what has happened is a similar effect as the invention of the printing press: More content, including AI content, unexpectedly, also means more human-made content. Likely, similar fears existed in the 1500s that the obsolescence of scribes would see the end of writing, but instead the production of writing exploded. Similar concerns were voiced in the early 2000s during the ‘Napster wars’ about how filesharing would obsolete musicians. Instead, the internet has led to more music overall online, such as by indie acts. And established artists made more money by reaching more people than who would have otherwise purchased CDs.
Second, ‘humans writing about AI’ constitutes a fairly large amount of writing, as this article and Dynomight’s demonstrates. Topics such as ‘AI safety‘, ‘AI and education‘, ‘AI and job loss‘, or even ‘AI and law‘ have long been debated to the point of exhaustion, but the content continues to pile up. If I was to exclude all content pertaining to AI, the quantity would probably fall by 50-70%.
Third, if AI leads to economic gains and automation, it can mean more leisure, and hence more time for writing and reading, including long-form content. Same for more disposable income, such as for paying for Substack and Twitter subscriptions. Some individuals have many dozens or even hundreds of Substack subscriptions, or many Twitter subscriptions to support their favorite creators. The popularity of streaming platforms, like Twitch, is evidence of how humans can thrive in an era of LLMs, and make a good living at it too. A similar effect was seen during Covid, in which due to the lockdowns, ‘work from home’, and stimulus, Americans were suddenly flooded with disposable income and free time, and this money flowed to the ‘creator economy’.
This goes to show how predictable or seemingly obvious narratives are not necessarily correct. Automobiles, for example, led to a consequent surge in the radio and broadcasting industry. Technology is unpredictable in that way.