Willison on Merchant's "copywriters Reveal How AI Has Decimated Their Industry"
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The debate rages on about the impact of AI on copywriters, with some claiming it's decimated their industry, while others, like rfarley04, a full-time SaaS copywriter, argue that AI is actually being used as a tool, with humans still heavily involved in editing and refining the output. The original article's methodology, which relied on soliciting stories from copywriters who lost their jobs to AI, has been criticized as biased, with some commenters, like MangoToupe, labeling it a "terrible way to look for a story." As the discussion unfolds, a more nuanced picture emerges, with insights into the complexities of the copywriting industry and the potential long-term effects of AI on salaries and job security, with bdcravens noting that a buyer's market could drive down salaries. Amidst the disagreement, a consensus forms around the idea that AI is changing the industry, but its ultimate impact remains uncertain.
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A problem I have with Brian Merchant's reporting on this is that he put out a call for stories from people who have lost their jobs to AI and so that's what he got.
What's missing is a clear indication of the size of this problems. Are there a small number of copywriters who have been affected in this way or is it endemic to the industry as a whole?
I'd love to see larger scale data on this. As far as I can tell (from a quick ChatGPT search session) freelance copywriting jobs are difficult to track because there isn't a single US labor statistic that covers that category.
This seems like an inherently terrible way to look for a story to report. Not only are you unlikely to know if you didn't find work because an AI successfully replaced you, but it's likely to attract the most bitter people in the industry looking for someone to blame.
And, btw, I hate how steeply online content has obviously crashed in quality. It's very obvious that AI has destroyed most of what passed as "reporting" or even just "listicles". But there are better ways to measure this than approaching this from a labor perspective, especially as these jobs likely aren't coming back from private equity slash-and-burning the industry.
It doesn't tell the whole story though. That's why I always look for multiple angles and sources on an issue like this (here that's the impact of AI on freelance copywriting.)
But it’s probably a great way create a story to generate clicks.
Hilariously naive.
Assuming you understand what I meant: As for being naive, that's hardly true; my opinion comes from experience. When the bubble burst in the early 2000s, you saw a ton of developers looking for work. This pushed salaries down, even for senior and advanced developers.
I think the more appropriate analogy from the 2001 bust is if those fields turn into similar to professional sports where you have to be unimaginably, talented and skilled and disciplined, and everybody else is playing in the rec league fact for nothing
But we’re also seeing a lot of schlock…
Once AI can write proper compelling converting copy then I’ll change my mind.
You're probably using the free lobotomized versions of LLMs, and shooting a one-off short ambiguous prompt and wondering why it didn't turn out the way you imagined.
Meanwhile people spend hundreds of dollars on pro LLM access and learn to use tool calling, deep research, agents and context engineering.
Clearly the important part of the work, turning it from slop to polished, has to be done by humans, and therefore (and in any case) they should be paid at human rates.
"Gamblers generate slop, businessmen sell it as 'AI-powered.'"
Something important is missing.
They can actually just hire the worst of you (who will do unpaid overtime, and let you call him a dummy when you're upset), because it's not a big deal that he's only 5x as fast as you used to be compared to your 10x as fast as you used to be. They can't even attract that much business now because the lowest end of the market completely disappeared and is doing it at home by themselves.
Prepress/typesetting work went from a highly-specialized job that you spent years mastering and could raise a family with to a still moderately difficult job that paid just above minimum wage within a single generation, just due to Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. Those tools don't even generate anything resembling a final product, they just make the job digital instead of physical. In the case of copywriting, AI instantly generates something that a lazy person could ship with.
That is, if you're selling razor blades, you want the handle and the shaving cream to be cheap. Well then, if you're turning slop into polished, then you want the slop to be cheap. And AI makes it much cheaper.
However, we live in a world where people have to compete to survive. Since a major portion of the task is automated, all of a sudden there are many available copywriting editors looking for work. The abundance tends to drive down the wage on sites like Fiverr.
And that's why unions are so important!
I can see some limited scenarios in up and coming industries or strategically important industries where government job programs could be at least argued for.
The copywriting industry is clearly not either of those.
I am not saying automation is bad, or that the jobs we have today should be set in stone and nothing change. But, there will be society level ramifications if we take some significant fraction of the workforce and tell them they're out of a job.
Look at how things turned out for the "Just learn how to code" people. Lots of people were confident that those were going to be valuable skills to have, and sunk years into bootcamps and training. A few short years later, we can say hindsight is 20/20 but the end effect is a lot of people without skills that can generate income to feed themselves, or others.
No, it's not, and the steep decline in quality of writing has reflected this. The industry is just committing suicide.
It's time to get your bag before the AI bubble pops.
If I started rejecting access to early models over a desire to avoid conflicts of interest my coverage would be less useful to people. I think most of my regular readers understand that.
I was responsible for one of the first widely read reports on the ethics of model training back in 2022 when I collaborated with Andy Baio to cover Stable Diffusion's unlicensed training data: https://waxy.org/2022/08/exploring-12-million-of-the-images-...
Calling me "their most enthusiastic shill" is not justified. Have you seen what's out there on LinkedIn/Twitter etc?
The reason I show up on Hacker News so often is that I'm clearly not their most enthusiastic shill.
If I can provide a different perspective, I find your writing on LLMs to be useful. I've referenced your writing to coworkers in an effort to be a little more rigorous when it comes to how we use these new (often unintuitive) tools.
I think the level of disclosure you do is fine. Certainly a better effort at transparency than what most writers are willing to do.
I stand by my opinion that if a major AI company says they aren't training on something it means they aren't training on that thing.
I continue to be annoyed that they won't confirm what they ARE training on though. Saying "we don't train on data submitted is our API" isn't exactly transparent, I want to know what they ARE training on.
That lack of transparency is why they have a trust crisis in the first place!
(Odd to see a complaint about me being an "AI cheerleader" attached to a post about the negative impact of AI on copywriting and how I think that sucks.)
> whelp that sucks
with a tone similar to what one might take when describing the impact of flatscreen TVs on the once-flourishing TV repair business, without mentioning all of the legitimate ethical (and legal) objections people have to how AI companies train their models and how the models are used.
> Anything I could do to be less insufferable?
Sure, go do a series on how they use residential IPs to hide their scraping, or on how they're probably violating copyright in a multitude of ways, including software FOSS licenses by disregarding attribution clauses and derivative work licensing obligations, especially for copyleft licenses like the GPL. Write about people using these systems to effectively "rewrite" GPL'd code so they can (theoretically) get around the terms completely.
I know there are a ton of fly-by-night startups abusing residential IP scraping and I hate it, but if it's Anthropic or OpenAI or Google Gemini that's a story worth telling.
https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/i-was-forced-to-use-ai-u...
I bookmarked the series which looks exactly like what everyone in tech is saying ISN’T happening:
https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/s/ai-killed-my-job
But I’m sure somebody will blow this off as “it’s only three examples and is not really representative”
But if it is representative…
“then it’s not as bad as other automation waves”
or if it is as bad as other automation waves…
“well there’s nothing you can do about it”
Anecdotally I was in an Uber yesterday on the way to a major Metropolitan airport and we passed a Waymo. I asked the Uber driver how they felt about Waymo and Uber collaborating and if he felt like it was a threat to his job.
His answer was basically “yes it is but there’s nothing anybody can do about it you can’t stop technology it’s just part of life.”
If that’s how people who are being replaced feel about it, while still continuing to do the things necessary to train the systems, then there will be assuredly no human future (at least not one that isn’t either subsistence or fully machine integrated) because the people being replaced don’t feel like they have the capacity to stand up to it.
While there are issues that are AI specific, I don't feel as if this is one of them. This happens for many reasons, of which AI is just one. In turn, I think this means that the way to address the problem of job loss should not be AI soecific.
If it turns out that AI does not create more jobs than are lost; that will be a new thing. I think that can happen, but on a longer timeframe.
When most jobs can be done by AI, we will need a societal change to deal with that. That will be where people need a livelihood, not necessarily a job. I have read pieces nearly a hundred years old saying this, there are almost certainly much earlier writings that identify this needs to be addressed.
There will undoubtedly be a few individuals that will seek to accumulate wealth and power who aim to just not employ humans. I don't think that can happen on a systemic scale because it would be too unstable.
Two of the things that supports wealth inequality is 1) people do not want to risk what they currently have, and 2) they are too busy surviving to do anything about it.
A world where people lose their jobs and have no support results in a populace with nothing to lose and time to act. That state would not last long.
We change the world. It's not happening to you; you're doing it.
Inevitability is a common argument of people doing bad things. 'I am inevitable.' 'Human nature is ...' (nature being inevitable). How f-ing lazy and utterly irresponsible. Could you imagine telling your boss that? Your family?
We are the agents. We do things. We are completely responsible for the results.
Humans are reactive and antisocial so the idea of a “common good” would require two things humans can’t do: Create sustainable commons and act as though we are all equal
Any position that assumes it’s possible is not even aspirational it’s naive
> Humans are ... antisocial
The well-established facts are that Homo sapiens and related species are 100% social animals; we live in groups and do not survive alone. We're not like wolves or bears; chimpanzees live in groups, not alone in the jungle. Our means of living, surviving, and thriving are all built for doing it only in groups, including empathy, cooperation, and altruism - universal human traits. (We even like to talk with strangers from unknown locations whom we'll never meet!) Isolated humans suffer severe mental breakdowns, such as in solitary confinement (which is considered torture).
Why do people like to argue for social nihilism and isolation? It's hard to name any respected leader or scholar who has claimed it - among leaders, even the worst murderers claim to do it for social good. For some people arguing nihilism/isolation may be externalizing fear or trauma and especially a feeling of isolation, a very human and social thing way to process those things (though there are healthy ways). Sometimes people want to seem or feel more serious or stronger by saying something more dangerous or dark.
Regardless, as I said, our discussion isn't idle speculation. We are actors; our words have impact; we are responsible for the impact we have on the people around us, our communities, our world. Again, who will we be?
I don't want to speculate or cross bounderies, but if you feel that dark and isolated I have good, but challenging news: Despite what some loud voices of the time say - people relentlessly seeking power and saying anything, no matter how absurd, to get it - we are social, humans have good instincts (and bad ones), and we thrive by embracing the good ones.
Freedom and democracy trust in our good instincts (which must be why its enemies promote nihilism), and have produced societies unmatched in freedom, justice, prosperity, and safety. Part of that is the ability to cooperate on a large scale - a consequence of building on good instincts: look at NATO, an alliance held together by its values, by trust and cooperation, and the most powerful military force in the world by far.
You are 100% correct. I was collapsing a concept too far for the metaphor. The more precise way I should have days it was:
“Humans aren’t eusocial”
It’s going to require the whole of humanity to shed the tribal affiliations in order to survive the transition to the post human world. The human species can’t expand our cortexes fast enough to becoming eusocial and so can be modeled as antisocial on the scale necessary to maintain anything but the remnants of a species.
Also to be clear I don’t personally feel in a dark or whatever place that you’re describing. I am a beautiful family and thriving friend groups and extremely engaging work I’m actively causing all of this to happen so I’m telling you this is a warning not because I’m trying to argue with you I’m telling you what’s happening and you should do something to prevent it.
I’m simply saying if you desire for the plurality of humanity to be the primary driver for action on the planet, then humans need to organize at the scale required to manage the global externalities of the machine automation wave that is going to absolutely decimate the majority of the population inside capitalism.
That is not my opinion that is a fact of life and until people recognize that it’s going to be a absolute bloodbath both metaphorically and literally between which is powered entirely by robotic labor and the rest of people who have no work and are unable to survive in such a society.
It might not be popular now but we have generations of evidence of it working, and tools to make it happen. And most of those were done before the Internet.
> That is not my opinion that is a fact of life
If you say so - but because we only have your say so, it's just opinion.
That technology advances and that causes issues is inevitable, but we can't go back. What we can do is work towards adapting the world as it develops into something we want.
If you took my post to mean there is nothing we can do then perhaps you missed the phrases "address the problem of job loss" or "we will need a societal change" or "this needs to be addressed".
I totally agree.
> That technology advances and that causes issues is inevitable
That such things happen is inevitable. But we can control how it advances, and what issues and trade-offs we face.
See above regarding 'inevitability'. It also strikes me as a way to avoid making a specific claim and supporting it - it's like invoking a higher power.
I'm pretty sure we'll survive.
I understand your reluctance. Yet I think, if you believe this, you should have that hard conversation sooner rather than later.
I promise you as an anarchist agitator that is unbelievably new just even in the last couple years and precisely what usually happens prior to actual direct action.
My fellow anarchists hate the fact that Donald Trump did more for anarchist-socialist praxis than every other socialist writer in history.
The way I'd read this sentiment is that the arrangement of society is ultimately arbitrary and if we could only choose a different system we could by truly free. I'm not sure if I'm reading you correctly or not. That said, my impression is that people will not really be able to get away from something like that looks like traditional jobs. The core traits seem to be group dynamics, hierarchical competition, status-attainment -- all where resources are not infinite nor are opportunities for status.
We've already had sufficient technological advances such that people would not need to do much labor, but functionally speaking I just don't think people can organize themselves into _any_ possible arrangement. I think the potential arrangements that could exist are limited by nature.
We could have had (practically) limitless fusion energy if we had chosen to invest the money earlier. We could have had the fantastically cheap solar we have today decades ago. We could have had non-polluting electric public transit across the country instead of private cars.
The people with the power and hoarded resources to do so have consistently made decisions to preserve that status quo at any cost. Our leaders chose to abandon space, to continue burning fossil fuels, to dismantle and demonize public transit.
We could choose these things. It is absolutely within our capabilities as a species. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either trying to manipulate you or simply lack the imagination. We could moonshot our way to post-scarcity in a decade or two. It's just that those with the power to make those choices have vast incentive not to.
Compare with something like unemployment benefits. The cost of benefits can be covered by taxes (which unlike the example above) can be progressively targeted and redistribute wealth to those most in need.
A social safety net is progressive, feasible (countries all around the world have them), and does not hinder technological or economic progress. What are the alternatives?
I posit that until this point in history there has never been a time where technology would allow us to grow and distribute food for free (in terms of both financial cost and labour of time). With the rise and convergence of AI, robotics, low-cost renewable energy, advances in optimal light-biomass conversion, diminishing costs on vertical farms, and self-driving vehicles, we have within our reach a way to produce food at essentially no cost.
Think through what would happen to society and our economy if food was free for anyone, anywhere. Think about the meaning of work.
If these ideas intrigue you, beta are readers wanted, see my profile for contact.
I have lost faith that other people who are not in my situation will do kind, high quality work for my benefit over long periods of time (my lifetime.)
I have a crazy dream of single families or neighborhoods owning land and owning lots of cheap open source robots that tend crops and maintain one another over time. And when I say cheap, I mean not worth the trouble to steal. Big backyards in urban settings will be coveted, community gardens everywhere. The software to run it would be open source and free, it would be designed to not deplete the land.
Maybe in my scheme no insecticides are needed because the robots can spot them as they enter the fields and kill them with pinching armatures or pew pew lasers.
My dream is probably stupid in a million ways and impossible unless I get lots of F-U money to do it myself. I imagine big ag interests would make it impossible to succeed and then I'd need 2x F-U money to out-lobby them. ;(
The expectation for everyone to retrain and do something else is not necessarily reasonable, especially in an environment that does not have much of a social support system for education, training, and extended periods away from the workforce.
And we all know that the market doesn't magically make replacement jobs better or the same as the previous ones.
In this instance, and probably most instances of art/craft, copywriters need to figure out what is creative again, because what is "creative" has changed.
The sad part is that the managers deciding on using AI are the ones who rarely understand what is good public communication - that's why they were hiring someone to help them with it.
With AI they get some text that seems legit but the whole process of figuring out why&how is simply skipped. It might sometimes work but it's doubtful it builds knowledge in the organisation.
I'd argue this requires a great deal of creativity. It's how we got "1,000 songs in your pocket."
The problem is us, on the consumer side. We are in an era of content hyperinflation. That was true before AI became ubiquitous
CPS samples 60k households per month to represent ~150+ million workers. Households stay in the sample 4 months, out 8, back 4.
Copywriters will get smoothed out in the aggregate, and the definition will mask this. Even if you work one hour, you are technically employed. If you are not actively looking for work for more than a month, you are also not technically unemployed.
Unemployment data is a lagging indicator for detecting recessions not early technological displacement in white-collar niches.
https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/i-was-forced-to-use-ai-u...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46264119
Thanks, and thanks for bringing the article to wider attention.
I believe that good skillful writing, drawing, or coding, by a human who actually understands and believes in what they're doing can really elevate the merely "good" to excellent.
However, when I think about the reality of most corporate output, we're not talking about "good" as a baseline level that we are trying to elevate. We're usually talking about "just barely not crap" in the best case, to straight up garbage in maybe a more common case.
Everyone understands this, from the consumer to the "artist" (perhaps programmer), to the manager, to the business owner. And this is why using AI slop is so easy to embrace in so many areas. The human touch was previously being used in barely successful attempts to put a coat of paint over some obvious turds. They were barely succeeding anyways, the crap stunk through. May as well let AI pretend to try, and we'll keep trying until the wheels finally fall off.