Talent, taste and trust in the age of AI | The Future of Writing | Interview with Scott Shigeoka ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
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Talent, taste and trust in the age of AI | The Future of Writing | Interview with Scott Shigeoka ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
June 11th, 2026
_A newsletter by_ Anne-Laure Le Cunff
Hi friends,
I just came back from a science writing workshop in Boston hosted by neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, who I’m a big fan of, and James Ryerson of the New York Times.
It felt really good to have two full days without any meetings or email, deep in the weeds of discussing the art of communicating scientific ideas and going through line edits.
Writing brings me so much joy, it’s hard not to worry about the future of this craft. So this edition is about that fear of becoming replaceable, and what we can do about it.
This is a topic that’s close to my heart, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on it. As usual, please feel free to hit reply!
Stay curious,
Anne-Laure
I started planning my next book, and there’s this question that keeps on nagging at the back of my mind: would an AI write it better than I could? Probably faster. Possibly cleaner. Maybe even, when I have a bad day, more beautifully.
If you make things for a living, you’ve likely experienced your own version of this. Before deciding what to do about it, it helps to know where this fear comes from.
Being replaceable threatens a few things we’re built to defend.
Underneath this is older wiring. In small ancestral groups, being valuable to others had a big impact on your access to food, protection and care, so the fear of being replaceable is linked to the much deeper fear of being unsafe.
So, can you become irreplaceable? In a strict functional sense, the answer is no – nobody is irreplaceable. But you can become hard to substitute. I think of it as the Triple T:
Talent. Bet on a rare combination of skills. A brilliant illustrator can be replaced by another brilliant illustrator, but a brilliant illustrator who also understands strategy, audience, and client politics is much harder to replace. And favor work that compounds such as writing, teaching, creating frameworks and documenting how you think so your unique combination of skills becomes increasingly visible instead of resetting with every new project.
Taste. What to keep, what to cut, what risk is worth taking… Knowing all this comes from lots of exposure and lots of reps. While a style can be copied, it’s much harder to copy a coherent point of view. In modern creative work especially, producing the thing is rarely the bottleneck – knowing what’s worth producing is.
Trust. When the work is hard and the outcome uncertain, the job tends to go to whoever is already trusted to handle it. That trust comes from seemingly unremarkable things such as doing what you said you would, raising problems early, and staying calm when a project wobbles. It’s worth investing in your relationships and not just your portfolio as this kind of social capital can become a real asset.
Again, the Triple T raises the cost of swapping you out but it doesn’t make you absolutely irreplaceable. To tame the anxiety of being replaced by a new person or a new technology, I find Hannah Arendt’s idea of plurality very helpful.
The idea is that we’re equal in being human and distinct because no two people carry the same biography, vantage point, and place in the world. Although you aren’t strictly necessary, your particular experience won’t recur.
Simply put, you can be replaced as a function, but you can’t be repeated as a life. I find this to be reason enough to do the work as only you would, with the dignity and responsibility that come with it.
My next book might be writable by a machine, but the version only I can write isn’t.
RiseGuide is an expert-powered app that gives you a clear and personalized plan for smarter thinking and stronger habits. In this interview with its founder Oleksandr Matsiuk, we discussed why expert-led learning is so powerful, the role of role models in self-improvement, why consistency isn’t a willpower problem, and much more. Enjoy the read!
Ready to put the Triple T model into practice? Try this week’s tiny experiment:
I will [publish one small framework once a week] for [6 weeks].
This can be a mental model, a quick rule of thumb, a phenomenon you found to be true in your industry. You can publish it on LinkedIn, in a newsletter, or in a short internal memo. The Triple T is actually an example of this kind of small framework :)
This experiment will help you build skills, develop your sense of what works, and build trust with others by learning in public.
➤ Want to dig deeper? Get your copy of Tiny Experiments.
SCOTT SHIGEOKA
Each week I ask a curious mind about their habits, routines, and rituals. This week we learn from Scott Shigeoka, entrepreneur, speaker, and award-winning author of Seek.
1. One daily practice you can’t do without? Choosing wonder over worry. Whenever I feel anxiety rising up through me, I remind myself to tap into curiosity.
2. One strategy to restart your creative engine? When I hit writer’s block, I take a breath and step outside – often walking through the sandy paths of the California high desert. Those moments of awe in nature consistently reset my mind and helped me re-enter a creative flow.
3. One habit you wish you had? I really wish I actually used the candles that I impulse purchased at cute stores on my travels, like the trip I’m doing across the country in my giant purple Curiosity Mobile. Instead, I have like a dozen (beautiful!) unused candles scattered around the apartment.
• For curious, self-directed thinkers. If you enjoy exploring ideas around productivity, psychology, and growth, Shortform helps you go deeper – without adding more to your reading backlog. Learn from the best books, faster, and build a system for lifelong learning. Start exploring. Ness Labs readers get 20% off.
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• Stressed at work, fed up with your job and dreading Mondays in the office? “Anti-career coach” and London banker Tom Grundy has created a free guide (How To Work Your Way) for professionals wanting more freedom and fulfilment. Join his newsletter to grab the guide.
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If you enjoy the newsletter, you’ll love our community of curious minds conducting tiny experiments within a safe space and learning together. Here is an overview of upcoming events (full calendar):
• Learn how to balance ambition and anxiety. In this guided session, Gosia Fricze will help you explore how ambition can turn into anxiety, how pressure shows up in your plans, and how to pursue meaningful growth without constant stress.
**• Explore what it takes to be a successful freelancer.** Join Kat Wong and Priya Joi for an exclusive workshop where they’ll share real-world experiences and specialist tools on how to build a new freelance life.
• Design an AI-powered reflection practice. Join Zsombor Koman for this session to learn how to use AI not as a faster answer machine but as a thinking partner that slows you down in productive ways.
**• Explore how to care wisely.** Drawing from his forthcoming book Sometimes You Should Be Late, Alex Snider will invite workshop participants to connect to their experience with deadlines, productivity, and presence, and what it might look like to work in a way that supports both output and a life you actually enjoy.
**• Make progress on your projects.** Join Kathryn Ruge for our Monday ‘body doubling’ coworking session to work on personal or work-related projects that you want to make progress on, covering all timezones. Ethan Miller is also hosting a cowriting session.
**• Improve your knowledge management system.** Join our next PKM meeting where we learn from one another through sharing how our systems work in the real world and give new PKM users a leg up.
**• Host your own workshop.** Do you have an idea for a short presentation and Q&A or a workshop you’d like to trial? Test your first iteration in the Ness Labs community and get feedback. We promote all sessions here in the newsletter.
All of these and future events are included in the price of the membership (only $49 for one year), as well as access to our courses, workshop library, and a dedicated space to track your tiny experiments.
Until next week, take care!
Anne-Laure.
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