AI and Copy Editors

Copy editors have been chatting a lot about AI. Should we use it? Will it replace us? The same questions other people have been asking about the same technology.

I am fairly certain that AI will eventually replace copy editors, maybe sooner rather than later. Right now, just as it has an edge over me for automated, repetitive, and technical tasks, I have an edge over it for all the reasons that make me human: I can preserve voice in a way that it cannot. When AI fixes typos, grammar, and readability, it also “fixes” the style and structure that make your writing yours rather than, well, its.

Many copy editors are refusing to use AI and declaring that on their websites. I’m not sure they realize that we have been using simpler forms of AI—like machine learning—for years. I’m not opposed to using AI for what it excels at, but that’s still as an aid to me, the copy editor. It is not yet ready to be an editor itself.