{"id":3306,"date":"2026-04-12T09:57:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T09:57:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/3306\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T09:57:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T09:57:20","slug":"a-i-this-was-once-essential-to-so-many-writers-now-its-vanishing-across-the-internet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/3306\/","title":{"rendered":"A.I.: This was once essential to so many writers. Now it’s vanishing across the internet."},"content":{"rendered":"

Sign up for the Slatest<\/a> to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily.<\/p>\n

My T-shirt was already clinging to me like I\u2019d entered a wet T-shirt contest when I spotted him across the street. I\u2019d flown 35 hours to be here, playing Frogger with San Salvador traffic, dodging motorbikes, arms already open for a hug I\u2019d been planning for years. Joe stepped off the curb with a massive smile, and for a second I just stood there, jetlagged and slightly delirious. Two colleagues, finally meeting.<\/p>\n

Except we\u2019d never worked in the same country. Or even the same hemisphere. Or for the same company. I\u2019m Australian. Joe is Salvadoran. We are writers who met online in a writing community I\u2019d spent years building. Then A.I. arrived. Every warning was about my income. Nobody mentioned it was coming for my friends too.<\/p>\n

Six years earlier, I\u2019d been hunched over a laptop in Melbourne, writing my way into a new career after selling my business. I found a few online freelance writing groups and joined them the way you join a party where you don\u2019t know anyone. Hovering near the edges, mostly lurking.<\/p>\n

Then I met Kelly. She was a more experienced writer who had no obvious reason to take an interest in someone who\u2019d decided, against the advice of his high school English teacher, to do the same. She corrected my rookie mistakes, pointed me toward opportunities I didn\u2019t know existed.<\/p>\n

We designed writing courses together, ran group calls, built more communities. We had Zoom sessions where everyone kept their camera on, but nobody talked, just wrote in companionable silence. I loved it when someone coughed or a phone rang. When Kelly visited Australia, we had dinner, and it felt like catching up with someone I\u2019d known for decades.<\/p>\n

As my profile grew, I was invited to more writing groups, including a private one for some of the biggest freelance writers online.\u00a0I stayed silent in that group for days, convinced someone would realize I was an impostor. Eventually, I typed something and hit send. Nobody kicked me out. Apparently, I had them fooled.<\/p>\n

Because I\u2019m in Australia and most of the group was American, I\u2019d wake each morning to a wall of overnight messages. I\u2019d sit with my coffee and catch up: Duncan\u2019s article had gone viral, Lisa wanted someone to review a draft, Sarah had been invited to give feedback to a new platform for writers. It was like an office meeting that kicked off my day. I\u2019d been working alone for years and somehow assembled a group of colleagues who had absolutely no HR department and even fewer boundaries.<\/p>\n

Joe entered a writing competition that Kelly and I ran. His entry was raw and honest and he won. We started messaging and reviewing each other\u2019s work. He\u2019d explain I\u2019d gotten the conjugation wrong and I\u2019d quietly Google what that meant. Yes, English is his second language and my first. When a signed copy of my first book got lost in the Salvadoran postal system, I joked I\u2019d hand-deliver it. My sarcasm was missed. We ate revuelta at his favorite pupuseria, hot filling running over our fingers, locals watching me fumble with the etiquette.<\/p>\n

That was three years ago. Over the past 12 months, every one of those communities went quiet. Not all at once. The tone shifted first. Celebrations became complaints. The Slacks that used to be full of someone\u2019s article going viral or a pitch getting accepted became places where people vented about A.I. slop flooding the platforms we wrote for. One news platform I\u2019d been writing on allowed writers to use A.I. as long as they disclosed it. It soon filled up with so much generated content that the real articles were buried. But the human writing was easy to spot: It actually made sense.<\/p>\n

Readers left. Writers followed. No goodbyes. I still wonder where they went. The conversation is always about jobs, as if the only loss worth measuring is income. But most of the writers I knew didn\u2019t pivot to A.I. and carry on. They just stopped. When writing feels like competing with software that works for free, the impulse isn\u2019t to fight harder. It\u2019s to close the laptop. I don\u2019t think A.I. writing is bad because I\u2019m threatened by it. I think it\u2019s bad because I\u2019ve read it.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just writers. After ChatGPT launched, Stack Overflow, the world\u2019s largest online community for software developers, saw web traffic drop by roughly 12 percent <\/a>and question volumes fall across its most popular topics. The company laid off 28 percent <\/a>of its staff. A 2024 study in Scientific Reports<\/a> examined the collapse and found that communities built primarily around information exchange were hit hardest.<\/p>\n

My writing groups weren\u2019t as big as Stack Overflow. They were small and private. We knew each other\u2019s names and read each other\u2019s drafts. But the dynamic was the same. Once the professional reason to gather disappeared, even genuine friendships couldn\u2019t hold the group together. The virtual staff room emptied not because people stopped liking each other, but because there was no staff left.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Lindsey Hall
\n I Stumbled Across My Boyfriend\u2019s ChatGPT. It Ended Our Relationship.
\n Read More\n <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Kelly Eden, the writer who first pulled me into this world, worked alone for over a decade before she found these groups. She described them recently as an amazing group of people who understood each other. \u201cIt was fun while it lasted,\u201d she told me. \u201cI loved it so much.\u201d Apparently my constant errors were part of the appeal.<\/p>\n

One of my closest friends from those years still messages me. We only talk about the NBA now, coincidentally now that my San Antonio Spurs have a winning season. Writing hasn\u2019t come up in months. The Zooms stopped getting scheduled. There was no announcement. No Friday farewell drinks with a goofy card everyone signed. It happened the way things end when nobody decides to end them. I noticed fewer messages. Then fewer still. Then one morning, I realized I couldn\u2019t remember the last time anyone had posted.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It\u2019s Bizarre, Unnatural, and the Size of a Football Field. It Might Be the Thing to Save Ski Resorts.
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

This morning, I hovered in the doorway while my wife, who works from home a few days a week, laughed on a call. She was telling her team about her weekend. They moved on to a client tender and she was scribbling notes. After the call she began messaging on Teams. She caught me standing there, my coffee going cold, and asked what I was doing. I was doing what I do most mornings. Standing awkwardly on the outside of someone else\u2019s water cooler. She pointed out, not unkindly, that working alone is the arrangement I chose six years ago. She\u2019s right. I knew I\u2019d be working alone. But I didn\u2019t know I\u2019d build something to fix that, and then watch it dissolve.<\/p>\n

When colleagues move on, you lose touch. That\u2019s normal. You catch up less, the messages thin out, and one day you realize you\u2019re not really in each other\u2019s lives anymore. Kelly got a full-time job outside writing. She\u2019s the one who brought me into this world, and now she\u2019s left it. Joe and I still message, but it\u2019s every other month now.<\/p>\n

None of us chose to leave. I\u2019m still here. Same desk, same laptop. Alone again.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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