More Than Words
How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI

Quotes

“Eric Jason Martin narrates this timely treatise on writing and AI…His slow pacing and crisp enunciation give the listener every opportunity to mull this well-reasoned argument. Final chapters offer suggestions for when, why, and how to push back against the AI onslaught.” AudioFile

“Illustrate[s] that the act of writing is not about the production of words but is, rather, a complicated and deeply human process that involves a relationship between thought, memory, intention, and language.” Washington Post

“Warner takes what could be a dry, technical subject and enlivens it with plenty of personal experiences and real AI responses to prompts to illustrate his point.” Christianity Today

“Warner’s book offers many reasons to feel hopeful about the future of writing.” Porchlight

“In lively prose and with many engaging personal anecdotes, he deftly explains…an impassioned plea for writing as a human practice and a social necessity in the age of AI.” Kirkus Reviews

“Warner offers smart commentary on the downsides of AI.” Publishers Weekly

“Writing is thinking—and if we allow machines to write for ourselves, then we’ve allowed them to think for us, too. And that is the sorriest thing a human could do. But Warner provides a better path.” Dave Eggers, New York Times bestselling author

“This lucid and compelling book gives us the tools to reject and resist what’s noxious about generative AI and to meaningfully engage with what it means to write, as a human, in a world increasingly overrun by cheap and meaningless content.” Brian Merchant, author of Blood in the Machine

“This is the book with everything you need to know about writing and AI all in one place, lucidly and passionately argued. Every teacher and every professor should have this book. Every legislator, every policymaker. Every parent and every student. Every publisher of newspapers, websites, and books. Here, John Warner exposes the ethical wasteland of replacing human writing with machine-made ‘content.’ He warns of the profound environmental costs of AI—trillions of gallons of water to cool data servers that produce nonsense no one wants or needs. And he reminds us that only humans can write and only humans can read, and that writing is thinking—and if we allow machines to write for ourselves, then we’ve allowed them to think for us, too. And that is the sorriest thing a human could do. But Warner provides a better path. This is a scary book, but a hopeful one, too, and an absolutely essential one.” Dave Eggers

“With his many years of experience as a writing teacher, Warner is the perfect guide for helping us understand what AI means for writers. Now is the perfect opportunity to rethink our ideas about writing and what’s so special about being a human who works with words.” Austin Kleon, New York Times bestselling author