Way back in the day, my mom had a part-time business typing up term papers and dissertations for university students. Well, I did say “way back in the day.” We’re talking about a time when grad students would come in with handwritten theses and manuscripts. They didn’t have their own typewriters, let alone word processors. And yes, I was alive to witness this. Phones were attached to walls and desks, restaurants had smoking sections, cars had paper maps in the glove box, and everything was sepia-toned.
Point is, I’m considering resurrecting the old family business with a modern twist. In ye olden times, students supplied messy handwritten intellectual labor and paid somebody with technological/clerical expertise to turn it into professional-looking typescript. Today they could supply immaculate machine typescript and pay somebody with humanistic expertise to put the mess back in. (I also bet “humanism” will start to acquire new connotations in the age of AI.)
Why not? We have apparently reached the stage where software companies sell machines that generate prose, other software companies sell machines that detect the generated prose, and still other software companies sell machines that make the generated prose look less generated. At some point the cheapest solution will be to hire a human who grew up in a sepia-toned world.