Jay Dixit helps writers improve their writing with AI. He doesn't recommend that AI write for you — he hates that — but he says it can be a great partner to pull ideas out and to be there for you when you get stuck and just wanna doom Scroll. Jay headed Open AI's Writing Community and is the founder of Socratic AI.

He's a writer and a journalist, and we sat down at South by Southwest to future around and find out. Jay says "We need to be using AI to unlock our humanity — to do the things that we're scared to do."

Chapters

(00:30) - Stop asking AI to write for you
(02:15) - Flip the script and let AI interview you
(04:30) - Why the defaults push you toward lazy thinking
(06:30) - Using AI at every phase of the writing process
(08:00) - Give the AI your criteria, then ask for feedback
(09:30) - The dark night of the soul and the 1 a.m. problem
(13:15) - The double-edged sword of always-on AI
(16:00) - What's catching Jay's eye at SXSW 2026
(17:00) - Why Wikipedia photos are so bad — and how Jay is fixing it
(20:30) - AI as a photography coach
(23:30) - How to stand out in a sea of AI slop
(26:56) - What George Carlin would make of this moment
(28:56) - The text Jay was avoiding sending his dad
(31:26) - Using AI to unlock your humanity

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Music by Jonathan Zalben