Combat Writing: Expressing Bold Ideas in a Complex Business World
Combat Writing can be too “violent” for AI at times yet perfect for people with a real beating heart. I say this as my customized agent on Open AI, called “Learning Producer”, has been removed from the GPT store for this very reason. It is what is.
Centralized systems have gatekeepers, play by their rules or don’t play at all. I run an AI offline as well but this piece is not about decentralization, although I’m bullish on the tech (nostr protocol for example). This is about writing in a world where real vs fake, truth vs lies, and theory vs action take center stage.
The following is a system that can be tested out individually for professional practice or for organizations and companies developing their written outputs. If you’re not using AI tools, try this with a committed group of friends or teammates. Combat Writing can be used even without the internet.The human is the creator and decision maker researching the following questions:
How does AI feedback complement human feedback in refining ideas?
When evaluating the quality of rough drafts, where do we agree and disagree with AI?
Does the Combat Writing approach break through the barriers of corporate BS and risk averse, conventional publishing?
[Without AI]
How does feedback refine our ideas?
When evaluating the quality of rough drafts, where do we agree and disagree with one another?
Does the Combat Writing approach break through the barriers of corporate BS and risk averse, conventional publishing?
Our startup challenges boring copy broadcasting noise and sterilized academic authorship avoiding the signal. Instead, we use the motto: Reading is peace; writing is war!
Give it a try and find out for yourself. Here are the bare bones and the compass to guide you:
THE COMBAT WRITING FRAMEWORK
Strategy Stage
Step 1. Select a meaningful project unique to your work or business. If it’s not high stakes enough to require action, scratch it.
Step 2. (Optional) Share topic and purpose for writing this piece with multiple AI. I use Anthropic’s Claude, xAI’s Grok and before it was removed, my customized Chat GPT agent “Learning Producer”).
Step 3. After reflecting on the desired outcome of the piece, type out your first draft. However the hell you want to.
Sparring Stage
Step 4. Upload your rough draft to an AI crew of your choice, I suggest at least three LLMs for identifying potential signals in patterns. (I’m swapping out Chat GPT for Google’s Gemini for now).
Note: Include a brief context of the writing (any relevant information that will help AI understand the circumstances of your project).
Prompt them identically with the following: “Read this rough draft and rate it on a scale from 1-10, you cannot use 7. Explain your reasoning with evidence.”
Step 5. Consider the feedback provided and how the three different LLMs evaluated your first iteration. Most rough drafts, are usually, well, rough! If this is done without AI, consider the biases each person has when sharing their interpretations.
Step 6. Discuss specific points with human teammates or reflect on where you agree and disagree with AI. For example, if the critique involves topics uniquely human, like emotional responses or physical sensations, remember that artificial intelligence can be excellent at explaining yet not always at understanding.
Battle Stage
Step 7. Identify patterns among the multiple AI feedback and make revisions or edits. Or, if the topic is too controversial or “violent”, discuss with an offline, uncensored AI model (I use Llama 3 for this using the Ollama app) or only human collaborators.
Step 8. Upload revised draft and prompt: “Evaluate this piece and provide an honest review.” You can ask specific questions: Would you recommend this piece? Purchase this service? Join this team? (AI has its own biases, responses are subjective, and hallucination do occur so take it with a grain of salt.)
Step 9. Reiterate and prepare final draft, decide on the outlets to distribute your piece, and prompt your AI crew (or friends IRL) with the following:
“Read this final draft, is this piece grammatically correct and ready for publication?”
Step 10. Review feedback and make last minute adjustments if necessary.
Champion Stage
Step 11. Publish your piece. Share it with your intended audience across chosen platforms.
Step 12. Analyze metrics. Impressions, comments, business outcomes.
Step 13. Acknowledge results, whether engagement is high or low.
Step 14. Celebrate, you didn’t just talk about free speech; you lived it.
This is our first public iteration of Combat Writing since Learning Producers, Inc was founded in the summer of 2023. After extensive internal testing, we’re ready for users to join our pilot program: The Writing Experience.
Apply here: https://www.learningproducers.com/services
You can also try out Combat Writing on your own and share your thoughts or published pieces with us. This is isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s just for those with heart.
