New podcast: Will tech writers survive AI? Perspectives from two professors, Nupoor Ranade and Jeremy Merritt In this podcast, I chat with two professors — Nupoor Ranade (Carnegie Mellon) and Jeremy Merritt (James Madison University) — about how AI is reshaping the technical writing profession from the academic side. We discuss dropping enrollments, misconceptions about what tech writers do, historical parallels to past disruptions, agentic AI and organizational restructuring, the cyborg model of human-machine collaboration, and how academics and practitioners can bridge the divide to solve real problems together. Listen/watch here: https://lnkd.in/g3U9k5By #ai #technicalwriting #podcasts #techcomm
One of my biggest observations, and this predates the AI thing, is the erosion of product ownership - especially as it relates to documentation. I have hard enough finding a product owner or SME to get me what I need, to make decisions, and to DEMAND that docs get authored and released on time. There seems to be feeling among some that AI will magically address all of these gaps. I'm sorry, but if I as a human writer cannot get timely information and feedback from a SME, then I don't see an AI getting anymore traction than I do. This notion that AI will absolve us all of responsibility will be its biggest failure.
I contend that Fergal McGrath’s second definition is the direction the profession has been on for a very long while now, certainly way before AI came into the picture fully.
It could be argued that we are currently between two definitions of technical writing. For many tech writers, this core definition (or a close variant) might still hold true: ‘Technical writing is the work of finding, checking, organising and maintaining clear, accurate and usable information for products, services and systems.’ Equally, this newer definition might capture the current direction of travel for many tech writers: ‘Technical writing is the work of designing and maintaining the information, structures and workflows that help people use products, services and systems, and help systems use that information reliably.’ Both definitions are wordy, but they need to carry a lot of meaning.