Missed you, Jen! 💚
So back in the day (mid-1990s) I was on a project to create documentation for specific tasks involving software within a company. And I, brilliant young jerk that I was, came up with the perfect timesaver — a program that would guide people as they described what they did EVERY DAY as part of their jobs. It was awesome! It was amazing! It had the company execs excited!
It was a total failure, of course.
It turns out that people, when pressed, CANNOT EXPLAIN WHAT THEY DO AT WORK EVERY DAMN DAY. Not coherently. We had a squad of tech writers whose job was to turn pages of human/computer drivel into coherent technical instructions. Job security, big time.
I remember turning 30+ pages describing five (5) separate tasks into a single (1) task with minor branching decisions. The SME who wrote the original argued that no no no! Definitely FIVE tasks! Their boss overrode them, but even that took a meeting.
When I switched jobs to the company where I met my current wife, Deb had just come off an internal ISO9000 project with a similar goal — documenting company processes. And no, my new company was no better at having people who could explain what they do at work. Every. Day.
So no, I do not fear for the collapse of the tech writing profession due to AI replacement. But yes, something to double-check my document to make sure I used Oxford commas consistently would be nice.