AI made rewriting fast. Picking the good version is another job

Three versions appeared on the screen. The same scene, written three ways, all generated by AI within minutes. David Goyer, the screenwriter behind Batman and Foundation, says a scene rewrite used to take days: meetings, a draft, the director's pass, another draft. Now AI can spin several versions out of his existing material in one sitting. The drafting time collapsed. He never said the work got easier. What AI most readily produces, he says, is the average version, the cliched one. The good one, if it exists, sits somewhere in the stack, waiting for him to find it. AI runs the options; choosing is still his job. When people talk about writing with AI, the usual questions are how fast it generates and how good the output is. Both now have decent answers that keep improving. One question rarely gets asked seriously: can you yourself tell which version is good? If you don't yet have a clear answer to "what is this passage supposed to do," thirty versions leave you exactly as stuck as three. Being able to choose depends on a standard for what good looks like that you brought with you. AI can't hand you that standard. It can only hand you options. When what AI writes for you feels mediocre, the cause is often on your side of the screen: the direction you gave was too vague. Execution got fast, so the hard part moved earlier. Before anything gets generated, know what you want. Goyer can find the good version in a stack because he knows what good looks like, a judgment built over 28 years. You can start generating drafts with AI today. Before each run, form some idea of what good means here, even a rough one. That step doesn't skip. Next time you ask AI for a few versions, spend a moment on one question first: if this came out well, how would I know? Answer that clearly, and you'll be able to pick it out.