I wanted to give a bit more information on how I wrote that piece. I wrote it in a very different way from how I usually write, and I want to try out this new method to see how it works. I’m sharing my process for anyone interested in writing, or just curious about how I’ll probably be doing this going forward.
I started, as many of these posts do, by talking to myself and realizing within a minute or so that I had a pretty good argument and wanted to get it down somewhere. Usually I would sit down and type out my argument, but I’ve found that typing tends to lead to a very different process from speaking. I do my best discovery by speaking out loud—ideally, though not necessarily, while alone.
So I started a recording and just kept talking. I spoke for roughly half an hour, thinking through my arguments, pausing when I needed to, and restarting twice. I ended up with a recording of everything I’d said and added notes like “maybe cut that sentence” or “make sure this fact is correct” where appropriate.
Then I fed the recording to a transcription tool and copied the transcript into OpenAI’s o3-pro with the following prompt:
Take this poor-quality transcript of a first draft of a speech, complete with stutters, restarts, and repetitions, and turn it into a single, well-drafted, cohesive version of the same. Don’t change the structure, wording, or argument unless absolutely necessary, though it would help if you could point out areas to tighten or clean up. Check the numbers and make sure they’re correct, adding footnotes with the math where possible. My source for the spending data was https://www.visualcapitalist.com/breaking-down-the-u-s-governments-2024-fiscal-year/ and my source for the wealth tax impact was https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/2/12/18211833/wealth-tax-calculator-warren-sanders and I calculated the effect of the 10% additional income tax on the top 1% as 3.3 million (number of 1% in US by overall population, assuming that’s the denominator in the 800k cutoff) * $800,000 (the approximate income cutoff to be a one percenter, though I asked AI instead of having a solid source for that). Check my facts, and make sure I didn’t say anything wrong. Critique my arguments, and suggest improvements or additional points where necessary. Finally, feel free to add anything else to the markup you think would be helpful.
Here’s the transcript I’ve got:
(Pasted transcript here)
The draft I got back laid out my argument much closer to how I wanted it but still needed some improvements for transparency. I revised it—mostly addressing the points o3-pro flagged—then published the final version here.
The whole process took about 45 minutes for recording and transcription, five minutes for the AI pass, and another one to two hours of editing, some with AI, some without (the entire next paragraph, for example, I added manually as part of my final edit). I’m happy with where the piece ended up: it sticks to my original message far more closely than my old manual method, and o3-pro really is a fantastic writing partner.
The biggest issue I spotted is o3-pro really likes to paraphrase. I’d guess this is by design, as you don’t want to use it to write or edit a piece, only to find it plagiarized an existing source verbatim. I switched to o3 after a while, particularly after the original source analysis and error correction was done. O3 is better at not paraphrasing, but still often cut out substantive sections, or suggested edits as a series of bullet points specifying changes rather than rewriting the entire piece with edits each time around. I’d imagine both of these flaws is due to a desire on OpenAI’s part to minimize excessive token use in their fixed-cost ChatGPT product. It’s fairly straightforward to train a large language model to be more concise, and it’s certainly more cost-effective.
I’ve read the piece end to end a few times and can’t spot a section that doesn’t sound like me. I’ll probably stick with this approach going forward, partly because I’m much more fluent aloud than at the keyboard. If you’re curious: yes, this follow-up was produced in the same way, though with a lot less editing. Below is the completely unedited transcript from this very piece for reference.
Unedited transcript (verbatim)
A follow up to US government math. So I wanted to give a bit more info on how I wrote that piece. I wrote it in a very different way from how I usually write. I want to try out this new method see how it works. So I share my process for anyone else who’s interested in writing or just curious about how I’m probably going to be doing this going forward, I started as many of these speeches do, by talking to myself and realizing within a minute or so that I had a pretty good argument and I wanted to get it down somewhere. Now this is usually where I would sit down and actually try to type out my argument, but I’ve always found that typing tends to lead a very different lead to a very different process in speaking. And I do my best discovery by speaking out loud, ideally, but not necessarily, while alone, actually, maybe cut that section. Yeah, maybe cut that section. So at this point, I started a recording, and just kept talking. I spoke for roughly half an hour, thinking through my different arguments, pausing where I wanted to pause and restarting twice, and ended up with a recording of everything that I had said and I would put in before, and ending up with recording, I would put it in one more like comma and then the words and adding notes like maybe cut that sentence or make sure this fact is correct, where appropriate. All right, back to the end of the piece. Then I fed this transcript, sorry. Then I fed this recording to a transcription tool, and copy and pasted the transcript into open AI’s 03 Pro, along with the following prompt, take this poor quality transcript of a first draft of a speech, complete with stutters, restarts and repetitions, and turn it into a single, well drafted, cohesive version of the same. Don’t change the structure, wording or argument unless absolutely necessary. Though, it would help if you could point out areas to tighten or clean up, check the numbers and make sure they’re correct, adding footnotes, footnotes with the math, where possible. My source for the spending data was link, and my source for the wealth tax impact was link, and I calculated the effect of the top 10% income tax, additional income tax in the top 1% as 3.3 million in parentheses, number of 1% in us by overall population, assuming that’s the denominator in the 800k cut off. End, parentheses, times 800,000 in parentheses, the approximate income cut off to be a one percenter, though I asked AI instead of having a solid source for that. End, parentheses, check my facts and make sure I didn’t say anything wrong, critique my arguments and suggest improvements or additional points where necessary. Finally, feel free to add anything else to the markup you think would be helpful. Here’s the transcript I got, and then I pasted the transcript. What I ended up with was my argument laid out in a structure much closer to how I wanted it to be, but still in need of some improvements for transparency. I’ll include the output of this first draft below, or maybe I would just say here’s the output of this first draft. At this point, I underwent revisions, mostly addressing the points that 03 pro had found, making them stronger where possible. I and correcting the argument to be the strongest version of itself. Finally, I added this to my personal website and hit Upload. The recording and transcription process to produce the original draft took around 45 minutes feeding it to 03 pro took another five and then I spent another hour or two on editing. I’m pretty happy with where this piece ended up, and I think it’s a much stronger version of where it originally was. And further, I find that this way of writing posts tends to stick to my original message far more closely than my previous way of writing it out manually. Not to mention that when you tell 03 pro not to correct your points or change your wording, it actually tends to lessen. I’ve read this entire piece end to end a few times at this point, and I really can identify any areas that aren’t the way that I would have said it you I’m probably going to stick with this way of writing going forward, if only because I’m so much more fluent and fluid while speaking out loud than while typing. If you’re curious, yes, this follow up was produced in much the same way I though, with a lot less editing, here’s the original transcript of the follow up that Is this very piece you’re Reading. If you’re curious.
Editor’s Note:
I was quite surprised reading the final draft above to find just how bad the transcription was. There were some major transcription mistakes (swapping “can” for “can’t”, missing words, truncated sentences, and several more), and yet the AI barely noticed. Truly amazing.