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"Instead of prompting the AI, like, 'Hey, generate this, answer this, give me the answers,' I say: 'Ask me questions.'"
Jay Dixit helps writers improve their writing with AI. He doesn't recommend that AI write for you — he hates that — but he says it can be a great partner to pull ideas out and to be there for you when you get stuck and just wanna doom Scroll. Jay headed Open AI's Writing Community and is the founder of Socratic AI.
He's a writer and a journalist, and we sat down at South by Southwest to future around and find out.
"We need to be using AI to unlock our humanity — to do the things that we're scared to do."
Chapters:
00:30 Stop asking AI to write for you
02:15 Flip the script and let AI interview you
04:30 Why the defaults push you toward lazy thinking
06:30 Using AI at every phase of the writing process
08:00 Give the AI your criteria, then ask for feedback
09:30 The dark night of the soul and the 1 a.m. problem
13:15 The double-edged sword of always-on AI
16:00 What's catching Jay's eye at SXSW 2026
17:00 Why Wikipedia photos are so bad — and how Jay is fixing it
20:30 AI as a photography coach
23:30 How to stand out in a sea of AI slop
26:00 What George Carlin would make of this moment
28:00 The text Jay was avoiding sending his dad
30:30 Using AI to unlock your humanity
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Future on…
~ Dan