Writers and Authors

Moderate Risk
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Occupation snapshot

What does this snowflake show?
The Snowflake is a visual summary of the five badges: Automation Risk (calculated), Risk (polled), Growth, Wages and Volume. It gives you an instant snapshot of an occupations profile. The colour of the Snowflake relates to its size. The better the occupation scores in relation to others, the larger and greener the Snowflake becomes.
JOB SCORE
4.7/10
What's this?
Job Score (higher is better):

We rate jobs using four factors. These are:

- Chance of being automated
- Job growth
- Wages
- Volume of available positions

These are some key things to think about when job hunting.

Risk & user votes

Calculated automation risk

40% (Moderate Risk)

Moderate Risk (41-60%): This occupation may be meaningfully affected by automation. Some parts of the role may be suitable for AI, software, or robotics, while others still rely on human skill, judgement, trust, or real-world context. People in this range may benefit from building skills that complement automation and reduce replacement risk.

More information on what this score is, and how it is calculated is available here.

Human strengths important in this job

These are human abilities and work contexts that are important in this occupation. They may help explain why parts of the role are harder to replace end-to-end, but they are not the only inputs into the automation score.

Communicating with people outside the organization

Very important
Why this matters
Represents the organization to customers, the public, or government—handling questions, concerns, and relationship-building through conversations, writing, calls, or email.
Jobs that also use this strength

Originality

Quite important
Why this matters
Coming up with novel ideas and creative solutions when there isn’t an obvious playbook to follow.
Jobs that also use this strength

Persuasion

Quite important
Why this matters
Influencing people to change their minds or behavior through conversation, trust, and negotiation.
Jobs that also use this strength

Social perceptiveness

Quite important
Why this matters
Noticing others’ emotions and reactions in the moment and adjusting what you say or do based on why they’re responding that way.
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Critical thinking

Quite important
Why this matters
Weigh options using logic and evidence, spot weaknesses in arguments, and choose the best approach when there isn’t a single clear answer.
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Show 3 more strengths

Coordinating others’ work

Quite important
Why this matters
Bringing people together, assigning tasks, and keeping a group aligned so work gets done.
Jobs that also use this strength

Developing objectives and strategies

Quite important
Why this matters
Sets long-term goals and chooses strategies and actions to reach them, weighing tradeoffs and adapting plans as conditions change.
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Active learning

Quite important
Why this matters
Keeps learning from new information and applying it to make better decisions now and in the future, especially when situations change.
Jobs that also use this strength

What users think

Based on 1,461 votes

54% chance of full automation within the next two decades

Our visitors have voted they are unsure if this occupation will be automated. This assessment is further supported by the calculated automation risk level, which estimates 40% chance of automation.

What do you think the risk of automation is?

What is the likelihood that Writers and Authors will be replaced by robots or artificial intelligence within the next 20 years?

Sentiment

Based on user votes over time

View sentiment trend

How opinions have changed over time

Pay & outlook

Wages

High paid relative to other professions

In 2024, the median annual wage for Writers and Authors was $72,270 ($35 per hour).

The median annual wage for Writers and Authors was 46.0% higher than the national median annual wage, which stood at $49,500.

View wage trend

Wages over time

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Growth

Moderate growth relative to other professions

The number of 'Writers and Authors' job openings is expected to rise 3.6% by 2034

View employment trend

Total employment, and estimated job openings

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the period between 2023 and 2033
Updated projections are due 09-2025.

Volume

Moderate range of job opportunities compared to other professions

As of 2024 there were 47,800 people employed as 'Writers and Authors' within the United States.

This represents around < 0.001% of the employed workforce across the country

Put another way, around 1 in 3 thousand people are employed as 'Writers and Authors'.

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Resources

Will Chat GPT spell the end of blogging?

Here's a very informative video from Ricky Kesler from Income School about Chat GPT as it relates to blogging (and SEO). We think it contains great advice, and can be applied to all sorts of writing job roles, not just bloggers.

What people are saying (108)

Leave a comment
Hope (Low)
13 Nov 2024 04:18
GPT and other AI generators may be able to write stories, but they don't come anywhere near human-written stories. Whenever asked to write a story, they always write it in a certain form, with similar plots. Nothing new or exciting. Plus, all humans think differently, so it would be impossible to model and AI that can think like every human. As a young author, I try to write stories outside the box that would be difficult for an AI to try replicating.
Adolfo Pereira (Low)
16 Mar 2025 19:16
AI might replace the more boring categories among the written word careers, but i don't see it replacing novelists, essayists, etc
Nicole (Low)
27 Nov 2024 03:29
Because AI can not replace the writers's feelings,thinkings,and personal experiences. Also, the sills of creativity etc.
RedBoxia
13 Jan 2025 18:10
It sure can mimic them, though. If ai continues growing, it won’t need emotions. It will eventually be able to fabricate them.
Ele (Low)
21 Jul 2024 16:55
As a writer myself, AI doesn't scare me because it lacks what writing and stories originally entail: experience. You can have a fantasy dystopia story written by ChatGPT, but it can never hold up to the bar human-made fantasy dystopian stories have set. Why? These stories contain human experiences, they contain a message that authors wish to convey, experiences authors wish to convey. It's the humanity that stories hold that make them loved by people. Any text-based AI can write a story, but will it ever hold the same impact to a story an actual person wrote? No, because AI hasn't experienced anything actual people have experienced. It only "sees" what people witness and puts it into its generation without second thought. The reason people consume stories is because they can relate to it, they learn something from it. I know AI helps breakdown and teach things we can't understand by piecing together information from the internet faster than we can, but for it to write a story? Fat chance. Writing is more than just fast money content (that, sadly, already is in today's times) it is a form of art that records experiences and messages that cannot be conveyed with straightforwardness. It is something that holds bits and pieces of humanity, of someone's memories, of messages that are so big that it can never fit in a simple sentence. No matter how many years it will take, AI can never catch up with how high the bar has been set when it comes to writing.
EE (Moderate)
15 Dec 2024 19:37
While AI and other tools can write, I don't think they're advanced enough YET to write on the same caliber as a human
Human # 7,522,997,653 (Low)
10 Jul 2024 08:58
I don't really think AI will take over writing. In my eyes, AI will never capture the thrilling, magical, real experience that humans can create.

Although they have a chance, AI can never reach the same level of imagination that we humans have when it comes to stories and fiction.

Though I have very little hope for humanity in the future, I still believe humans can change for the better.
d (No chance)
23 Aug 2023 08:13
If you believe that people engage with writers purely because it's "content", I must inform you that this job would have already been eliminated a long, long time ago simply by SEO.

ChatGPT is not going to write things that people care about. This isn't because chatgpt is a bad writer - it's because people primarily consume written content because of the person behind it. Since the dawn of the internet, and even before, there have been an infinite number of takes, a vast supply of content. Yet, somehow, people still pay for newspapers, and substacks, and books, and all sorts of things that are seemingly available for free with just a Google search. It's because of the particulars of that person's perspective, not just "story good" or "take good."

There are already far more failed writers than successful ones, and far more failed "in the style of" works than actual successful works. What AI will do is simply raise the stakes for what it takes to be a successful writer or author, since it establishes a baseline commodity. However, that baseline is already very, very high.
Laurel
20 Aug 2024 16:00
I'm an author, and I just thought I'd share my take on this. While it's true that AI can't replicate human emotions and experiences, it has proven to be capable of writing average stories. Too many people consume media without a critical eye. As long as people as a whole start to care more about quality media, we should be fine.
Dom (Low)
29 Apr 2024 17:53
Creativity, novelty, capturing the social, invention.
Rebecca (Low)
22 Apr 2024 16:20
Because robots tend to be predictable and writers need imagination and I don't see robots having that
Philip Whittebane (Highly likely)
19 Apr 2024 22:07
At least many blurb and screenwriting jobs could be automated. Although there would still be the requirement for some level of creativity
Eden (No chance)
03 Oct 2022 19:58
I wouldn't read a book written by AI. Replacing authors would promote illiteracy.
Mark (Highly likely)
29 Mar 2023 08:46
The problem is if in the future you will be able to tell the difference
Justus (Low)
03 Feb 2026 18:05
Being a writer or an author requires levels of creativity based on individual experience that I believe AI could never truly imitate.
Ray (Low)
12 Jul 2024 23:40
Robots will never be able to copy real writers' creativity, although they could help you write a short essay for school, AI cannot do original and creative writing.
R H DARNELL (Low)
07 Jul 2024 20:26
Real writing uses creativity. AI is not creative, AI can only use what you input. It can rhyme, and write grammatically correct sentences, but it cannot convey emotion or elicit a response on a human level. I believe it could write a "good" outline, but not a good screenplay, much less a great book.
Pasi (No chance)
03 Jul 2024 14:13
It depends on the author, but currently the AI simply can not write a good book.
Chris Ochs (Moderate)
06 May 2024 13:00
News and nonfiction are high. Fantasy, sci-fi, horror novels far less so.
ali (No chance)
08 Jul 2021 07:12
if robots replace writing then they probably will replace everything
Rikki (No chance)
20 Apr 2021 13:42
LOL. XD I'd never read a book written by a robot who's just a piece of junk.
GM
03 Nov 2025 22:04
Seeing how high of a risk percentage there is makes me pretty concerned for my future outlook. Although I truly believe that AI is incapable of replicating human originality or emotion for that matter, it is clear that companies and other external entities don’t care for human creation. I do think there would be a lot of pushback from creators, and the writer’s strike in 2023 was a clear example of that, but I think there is an unavoidable sense of harm that will impact this industry directly.

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Job description

Originate and prepare written material, such as scripts, stories, advertisements, and other material.

O*NET-SOC code: 27-3043.00