Hi Arslan,
We found a cool new app called Wisrp Flow. It's dictation app where you yap and get text. Super fancy, neat, and fast. I love the UI.
So, this is another daily voice note. Before starting, I was thinking about what to talk about today. Then I realized I can literally yap about yapping!
Specifically, about using dictation apps. I realize that they basically give you a false sense of accomplishment. It's like busy work. The fact that I'm yapping and I can talk a lot, like literally a lot, considering the fact that I speak very fast. My mind can generate huge amount of relatively coherent thoughts that make sense. It's both overwhelming and exciting. So, with dictation, I feel.. liberated.
And then in the end, my note looks like a thousand words, and you look at it, you read it, and it's relatively clear, relatively articulate. You feel like, damn, that's good, I did something cool! And then you immediately get the positive feedback loop. You're like, damn, I just output a thousand words without writing!
And now you are immediately hooked, which introduces a new problem.
You get hooked to the actual process of yapping, and each time you get the chance to jot something or a thought pops up — instead of thinking first, you just open your notes and start yapping. Why? Because everything will be transcribed easily. Convenience wins, effort disappears, and your cognitive ability diminishes. Another example of AI making us "dumber."
Then you'll have another thousand-word note, you'll look at it, and be satisfied, feeling accomplished — and the cycle continues.
This is a big problem because of a very simple reason:
Writing and speaking are fundamentally different.
When writing, your typing speed is surely a limiting factor, but at the same time, it's a limiting not in the sense that it limits you — but that it constrains you and gives you space, a delay, between your thoughts and them appearing on the medium, like (in this case) typing.
Typing lets you process information and gives your brain time to actually analyze and think about what to write.
And this is why it's more powerful. You're really thinking about which word to use, and the final piece is cleaner, concise, articulate, and coherent. Isn't the ultimate goal of writing to help you think better, clearly, and organized?
When you're yapping, you're just spitting out words without thinking, repeating yourself, and ending up with a thousand-word piece of so-called text — but it's not a text! These are your pure, unadulterated thoughts of your blasphemous mind.
I thought I'd reflect on this and think of what I can do.
One is to continue what I'm doing right now (with this very piece): deliberately slowing down my speech, thinking first, and kind of mimicking writing to get benefits of both. Yet, it doesn't reduce the possibility of me just hopping on a new note and start yapping.
The conclusion, for me, is that transcribing won't replace writing.
Because writing is fundamentally different from speaking.