原文：
Writes and Write-Nots
I’m usually reluctant to make predictions about technology, but I feel fairly confident about this one: in a couple decades there won’t be many people who can write.
One of the strangest things you learn if you’re a writer is how many people have trouble writing. Doctors know how many people have a mole they’re worried about; people who are good at setting up computers know how many people aren’t; writers know how many people need help writing.
The reason so many people have trouble writing is that it’s fundamentally difficult. To write well you have to think clearly, and thinking clearly is hard.
And yet writing pervades many jobs, and the more prestigious the job, the more writing it tends to require.
These two powerful opposing forces, the pervasive expectation of writing and the irreducible difficulty of doing it, create enormous pressure. This is why eminent professors often turn out to have resorted to plagiarism. The most striking thing to me about these cases is the pettiness of the thefts. The stuff they steal is usually the most mundane boilerplate — the sort of thing that anyone who was even halfway decent at writing could turn out with no effort at all. Which means they’re not even halfway decent at writing.
Till recently there was no convenient escape valve for the pressure created by these opposing forces. You could pay someone to write for you, like JFK, or plagiarize, like MLK, but if you couldn’t buy or steal words, you had to write them yourself. And as a result nearly everyone who was expected to write had to learn how.
Not anymore. AI has blown this world open. Almost all pressure to write has dissipated. You can have AI do it for you, both in school and at work.
The result will be a world divided into writes and write-nots. There will still be some people who can write. Some of us like it. But the middle ground between those who are good at writing and those who can’t write at all will disappear. Instead of good writers, ok writers, and people who can’t write, there will just be good writers and people who can’t write.
Is that so bad? Isn’t it common for skills to disappear when technology makes them obsolete? There aren’t many blacksmiths left, and it doesn’t seem to be a problem.
Yes, it’s bad. The reason is something I mentioned earlier: writing is thinking. In fact there’s a kind of thinking that can only be done by writing. You can’t make this point better than Leslie Lamport did:
If you’re thinking without writing, you only think you’re thinking.
So a world divided into writes and write-nots is more dangerous than it sounds. It will be a world of thinks and think-nots. I know which half I want to be in, and I bet you do too.
This situation is not unprecedented. In preindustrial times most people’s jobs made them strong. Now if you want to be strong, you work out. So there are still strong people, but only those who choose to be.
It will be the same with writing. There will still be smart people, but only those who choose to be.
翻译：
写作与不写作
我通常不愿意对技术做出预测，但有一点我敢确信：在几十年后，真正会写作的人将不会很多。
如果你是一名写作者，你会了解到最奇怪的事情之一就是有多少人写作有困难。医生知道有多少人担心他们身上的痣；擅长设置电脑的人知道有多少人不擅长；写作者知道有多少人需要写作上的帮助。
许多人写作困难的原因在于写作本质上就很困难。要写得好，你必须思路清晰，而清晰思考是很困难的。
然而，许多工作都涉及写作，而且职位越重要，往往需要的写作就越多。
无处不在的写作需求和难以降低的写作难度这两股强大的对立力量，造成了巨大的写作压力。这也是为什么很多著名的教授们常常会陷入剽窃的境地。我对这些案件最深刻的印象是偷窃行为的琐碎性。他们偷的东西通常是极其普通的套话——任何稍微有点写作能力的人都能毫不费力地写出来。这意味着他们甚至没有一点写作能力。
直到现在，还没有一个有效的方法来缓解这两股对立力量产生的压力。你可以像肯尼迪一样花钱让别人为你写作，或者像马丁·路德·金一样抄袭，但如果你不购买或抄袭，你就必须自己写作。因此，几乎所有有写作需求的人都必须学会如何这样做。
现在情况已不同了。人工智能已经改变了这个世界，几乎所有写作的压力都消散了。你可以让 AI 为你完成，无论是在学校还是工作中。
结果就是世界上的人将分为会写和不会写两种。仍然会有一些人会写。我们中的一些人喜欢这样。但擅长写作和完全不会写的人之间的中间地带将消失。不再是优秀的写作者、一般的写作者和不会写的人三种人，而是只有优秀的写作者和不会写的人。
这真的很糟糕吗？当技术使技能过时时，技能消失不是很常见吗？剩下的铁匠已经不多了，但这似乎并不是一个问题。
是的，这很糟糕。原因就是我之前提到过的：写作就是思考。事实上，有一种思考只能通过写作来完成。你无法比 Leslie Lamport 做得更好来阐述这个观点：如果你仅仅思考而不写作，你只是在自以为在思考。
所以一个分为“优秀写作者”和“不会写的人”的世界比听起来更危险。这将是一个分为“思考者”和“非思考者”的世界。我知道我想在哪一半，我打赌你也一样。
这种情况并非史无前例。在前工业时代，大多数人的工作使他们变得强壮。现在，如果你想变得强壮，却需要锻炼。所以，仍然有强壮的人，但只有那些主动选择成为这样的人。
它将与写作相同。仍然会有聪明人，但只有那些主动选择成为聪明人的人。
