Trust
You’ve probably heard about the attention economy. It’s what “influencers” count on, what corporations yearn for, and what I’m doing here. The more people who read this newsletter, the more my power grows, right? And it’s what authors count on.
For your book to be successful—in whatever dimension of success you prioritize—you need people to notice it (attention) prioritize it (attention), and decide to devote several hours of concentrated attention to reading it. Publishers are highly attuned to signals that an author can command attention from their potential readers. It’s what we talk about when we talk about “platform.”
But I predict a sea change.
Over the last couple of years I’ve watched the rise of AI and the way people are using it. A huge chunk of its use is turned to writing already (it stands to reason: writing is hard, which is why authors are so highly respected, and people love the fantasy that a computer can do their hard work for them). Since I started Write Like an Expert and Author Club to help people with all of this stuff, I’ve had to turn myself into an entrepreneur, and as a result I’ve seen the wild hype around AI that people are shilling in those spaces. Anyone with hands-on experience with AI knows that it’s not nearly as reliable as we’d like to believe. It makes up a significant number of the “facts” it provides, and the more you know about a topic, the more disappointed you’ll be in its writing. Recently, I learned about the frankly amazing capabilities of Sora. If you haven’t seen it, imagine a website you can go to and provide a simple text prompt to create a realistic video clip of pretty much anything you want. It’s astonishing, frankly. And frightening. People are already demonstrating the way you can use it to fake evidence of voter fraud, for example.
In a world where you have to doubt the truth of things you read and things you see on the internet, something’s gotta give. Think about this: how often do you get an email from an unknown sender, a DM from a random account, or a call from a number that’s not in your contacts—and what is your instinct when that happens? If you’re like me, you’ve come to assume they’re —at best— someone trying to sell you something, or at worst, a bold scam. We’re about to see what the world is like when the scammers that surround us on the internet can make themselves seem more real, more legit, and more believable than ever before. The result is going to be that we don’t believe much at all. The attention economy is going to die a quick death.
In its place, the Trust Economy will rise. It’s going to push us into more human-level contact. More in-person events, more weight given to referrals from people we know, and less receptiveness to unsolicited contacts from people we don’t know. Gullibility will be seen as believing anything you can’t verify personally or through your own network. It’s going to mean people will seek out content made by real people. Will you be able to fake it by putting your name on an AI-generated book? Sure. But once you’re found out, the trust will be gone, and you won’t get it back.
For authors, this is good news, but it comes with a couple of implicit warnings. Don’t use AI to write your book. Don’t use a ghostwriter. Readers will be on high alert for signs that they shouldn’t trust you—don’t give them anything to discover. Do work with a reputable publisher if you can. Or, if you’re self-publishing, do get some endorsements or reviews by people or organizations who have the trust of your audience. If you’re a reader of this Substack, you probably already understand these things, but they’re going to become much more important over the next couple of years.
Have you started doubting the things you see on the internet with your own eyes yet?
Robin, you put words to a what has, for me, been the vague impression that the accelerating unpleasantness in so many corners of the internet presents an opportunity to reground ourselves in physical, lived, and social reality. The trust piece is what was missing for me, so I appreciate your thoughts in that regard.
On a related note, I have wondered if the rise of AI will eventually push a resurgence of print. Will the necessary investments, in time and money, filter out the automated slop, so that physical documents come to represent authority, reliability, and, as you suggest, trustworthiness?
Love this—and I hope you are right about a trust economy arising in its place. David Brooks has written well in the Atlantic about the erosion of trust in the US—and globally.