One day, when I can pull together some brain cells to form more organized thoughts, I’ll write about how I somehow accidentally became a content engineer and what in the world is it.
Now, we content people have a tendency to give ourselves fancy titles. Sometimes I feel there’s an element of insecurity in there, but my theory is that we are trying to tell recruiters that there are many specialisations in the writing field and there’s no such thing as “a writer that can write everything”.
For example, just because you have been a copywriter for years doesn’t mean you can automatically write UX copy and software documentation. These are specialised fields; the skill required to write both takes time to develop.
But reality, as you know, is different. In Malaysia, especially, companies are keen to hire the “all in one” writer who writes everything. I’ve even been this writer for a company or two.
Although I occasionally whinge about the unfairness of shouldering that kind of burden, I have to admit that having worked that role many times have made me extremely flexible when the AI age came around.
There’s no, “But I’m a [insert specialised title] not a [new thingy].” My attitude is, “Aight, what’s this new thing I have to learn so that I can get on with it?”
So this season, the new thingy is AI, or to be more precise LLMs and generative AI.
Last week I built the editorial planning app of my dreams (okay, it still has a few bugs that need to be ironed out) and a skill that would automatically create PDFs out of Confluence docs. I felt like a superhero at the end of the week. I’ve tried to tweak, bend and stopped short at smashing my Jira subscription to get an editorial planning tool out of it. Last week I gave up and decided to just build something new. The fact that I managed to get a workable app in three days was an absolute miracle to me.
I was thinking to myself that this app wouldn’t have been possible if not for Claude Code (and other AI). Before, the app would’ve probably taken months to launch. The ping-ponging, meetings, chat messages, JIra tickets that would fly back and forth just to communicate the product specs would’ve taken weeks. I don’t even think a company would greenlight such a project because it would take engineers away from precious projects that actually pay the bills.
But I built this app in three days.
THREE DAYS!
So, is AI genuinely useful to me? Oh yes.
Has it made me more productive? Yup. I am now able to do things in a few days when it would’ve taken weeks to do them.
SO, I find it odd and disconcerting to step into a whirlpool of angry words about AI each time I log into social media after experiencing such personal delights.
Generally, I try to stay out of it, and remind myself that these angry people are based in a land where they have very good reasons to be mad at AI and the companies that push it.
However, because of my tendency to process my thoughts by writing, I’ve been writing about AI a lot lately (rather gushily, I have to admit), and I’ve been attracting angry people as a result.
I don’t know most of them, and honestly I have no idea why they are so angry at me, but they probably see me as a symbol of everything wrong in the world today. I guess?
In real life, things couldn’t be more different. I’m surrounded by people who are optimistic and excited about AI. Heck, I have a 75-year-old friend who is running courses teaching seniors how to use AI!
There’s a huge (clumsy) push by my government to make AI a thing and in Asia, people are generally pretty optimistic and interested about AI in general.
Social media is not real life, I tell myself over and over again.
It is true, however, that my writing has changed on this website as a result. I write more about tech, more about AI, but that’s because I work in the tech industry, am surrounded by friends and colleagues who love using AI, am learning mostly AI skills these days. However most of all, I write about AI more because I’m genuinely having fun with it.
Work, and even writing has been more fun with AI. LLMs have enriched my life so much. The dream of just finishing my novels and putting it out there? It has become more possible thanks to the tech I have at hand.
FYI I’ve actually completed three novels, all written before ChatGPT debuted, but couldn’t put it out there because I just lacked the time and money to edit them and give them decent covers. I spent thousands on the first book, and thinking of the effort it would take to do the same for the second and third book just made me wilt. I’ve worked with human editors and graphic designers, and to be honest, I wasn’t super satisfied with the results I got from the money I spent. I have many authors telling me that I didn’t spend enough which is why I got the results I got. Goodness, I don’t have a sugar daddy to fund a book project that most probably would never break even!
Over the years, work got more demanding and my books remained finished unpublished. I actually worry that one day the files are so corrupted that I won’t be able to open them!
I don’t expect to make money from these novels. I want to put them out there because I hate unfinished business. I have books and short stories sitting in my hard drive and that doesn’t sit right with my.
Before, time , money and energy were my barriers to editing and packaging them into a format that the public can consume.
Now, with AI, I can finally do it affordably and decently.
Yes, there will be those who would rudely cancel and tar me with feathers for even using an AI cover or editing it with AI.
But it’s okay, they don’t have to read my novels. In fact, I’ve always been a weird one; I never really cared how many people read my novels or works.
I get the most joy in completing and experiencing the act of creation. Sure, I appreciate praise and feedback for my readers, but my driving force has always been the act of completion and creation.
So, I cannot wait to finally push out my novels. The only thing stopping me now is wondering if I should serialise it first, and not knowing how to do this.
Note: Please be respectful when leaving comments. I am happy to receive comments that are not aligned to my beliefs or thoughts, but I only welcome those that are respectful. My mission is to create a safe space for discourse in my comments section, so I will remove rude and antagonistic comments.
Elizabeth Tai 
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