Bye-bye and thanks to AI

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Who is the Piglet in this scenario?

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Creatives all over the world are trying to figure out their futures with AI in our midst. Chris Marais beards a couple of the culprits in their dens and asks the question: do you come in peace?

Chris Marais and his partner Julienne du Toit

During an after-dinner fireside chat with a couple of writers some time ago, the dreaded question of AI and our professional futures came up. One opinion was pretty clear: “It’s going to kill us!” We pondered on that for most of the evening, gaming all possible futures, until we just gave up and drank some more wine instead.

The next morning, there was a little AI niggle in my brain. What if? Could it be? Was it time to pack up and go teach English to little children in South Korea? Take up a plumbing trade? God knows, our ancient Karoo house would love that. Just some context here: my wife Julienne and I run a boutique book-publishing business called Karoo Space, focusing exclusively on, you guessed it, the Karoo region of South Africa.

https://karoospace.co.za/

Our old-school training demands that we fill the bakkie with diesel, load up the kitchen sink and head out for weeks at a time in search of good stories, places to highlight, faces to photograph and people to interview. Thank goodness we are addicted to this rather artisanal editorial approach, because it’s really no way to become a billionaire. Ask any indie publisher you come across.

Visiting Burgersdorp for a week? The butcher, baker, candlestick maker, ostrich farmer, schoolteacher, entertainer and chef all have to be interviewed and photographed. And look out for any stray eccentrics, especially the creative kind – always good for spicing up a story. We have to swerve all over town and surrounding district for photographic background, research where we can (tip: the old museums still yield gold, from time to time) and go home to craft off the finished product.

We eventually fashion it into a book chapter on the region, have it laid out and sent to a printer in Gqeberha (PE), commission Wynand from Safeway Couriers here in Cradock to pick up two tons of books from “Die Baai”, launch it, market it and smous it on the road to padstalle and curiosity shops. Occasionally a dinkum bookshop.

Would AI beat us on this? Could it conjure up a spitting image, a credible print-ready version of what took us decades to learn? Until recently, I would have thought not. But now I had my doubts, so I went directly to source and asked ChatGPT: “Will Karoo Space survive AI?” And here’s a precis of what it told me in two seconds:

That’s a big and important question. The short answer is: yes, AI will change the nature of work in travel writing and publishing – but it’s unlikely to kill it off entirely, especially for people who adapt.

For Karoo Space, for Chris Marais, for Julienne du Toit and others who bring deep expertise, unique voice and storytelling power, there’s still a strong place. The key is how you evolve. I’ll map out what I see as the risks, the opportunities and some strategies.

What AI can do – and where it struggles

To understand whether AI may “kill” your job, it helps to see what it already can do and, well, what it can’t:

What it can do:

Generate first drafts, basic informational content, travel itineraries, destination profiles, packing checklists, etc. These are formulaic, research-driven pieces where much of the info is public.

Help with idea generation: prompts, outlines, headlines, even suggest angles for stories.

Aid in editing, grammar, style polishing and sometimes even localisation.

Produce “content at scale” – faster, cheap, repeatable. Helpful to keep blog/update flow, SEO-driven articles, etc.

What it struggles with / what it can’t replace (at least not yet or not fully):

Authentic voice, nuance, cultural insight, empathy: the kind of vivid detail, feelings and sensory-rich impressions that a travel writer living/experiencing the place provides.

Original perspective: human experience, serendipity, unexpected encounters, dialogue with locals, insights that come from “being there”, not just assembling what’s already known.

Trust and credibility: especially for travel, where safety, logistics, local politics and current conditions matter. AI can hallucinate, give out-of-date info or get cultural/historical context wrong.

Creative risk-taking: experimentation, breaking the rules and exploring unusual structures or narrative forms. AI tends to be conservative (it’s trained on what exists).

Emotional resonance: what touches people is often what’s uniquely human – stories, reflections, surprises, failure, transformation.

Risks for travel writers and publishers like you

Here are some of the threats more specific to your kind of work:

Commoditisation of content – travel content that is basic, generic and SEO-driven could increasingly be generated automatically, driving down what clients are willing to pay for simple guide-style content.

Competition from platforms using AI – big travel content platforms or aggregators might use AI to produce huge volumes of content or even to dynamically generate personalised travel guides or itineraries for users.

Undervaluing of human work – clients might expect lower rates or push more “cheap” AI-assisted content, thinking it’s “good enough”, especially if they don’t know how to judge quality or voice.

Speed pressure – if AI lets others publish faster, the pressure increases: you’ll need to move more quickly or risk being outpaced.

Misinformation/liability – if AI gets something wrong (eg, misrepresents visa rules, health/travel advisories, local conditions), there could be trust or reputational risks.

Opportunities and advantages you already have

But there are also many advantages you and Karoo Space bring that are harder for AI to replicate:

Deep local knowledge of South Africa, the Karoo, possibly lesser-known places. First-hand experience, local voices.

Established reputation and network (if you have a loyal audience).

Unique storytelling style that readers come back for.

Being on the ground means current, up-to-date info: events, new places, things changing.

How to stay relevant and thrive

To protect your job (or grow it) rather than being replaced, here are strategies you might consider:

Using AI as a tool, not a replacement

Let AI help with research, drafting outlines, checking facts and speeding up the writing of structural elements.

But ensure all content gets the human touch: rewriting, infusing voice and doing the “on the ground” work.

Use AI to free up more of your time for work only humans can do (interviews, immersive stories, unusual journeys, relationships with local communities, etc).

Doubling down on what humans do best

Emotional, sensory-rich storytelling, memoir, reflections.

Exploration of underreported places, local culture, wildlife, food, marginalised communities.

Investigative or long-form work that requires context, nuance, presence.

Innovation in format/medium

Multimedia: photos, videos, podcasts, interactive maps, immersive media (AR/VR). These require creative and logistical work.

Personalised travel planning, curated experiences rather than generic “top 10” kind of stuff.

Community building: letting your audience interact and share their own stories, creating a feedback loop.

Transparency and credibility

Be clear when you use AI/tools, but show how you add value.

Fact-checking, updating content, keeping trust.

Possibly focus on evergreen content, or the current “state of things”, where human knowledge/travel news matters.

Niche and authority

Become the go-to for something specific: eg, Karoo landscapes, sustainable travel, local stories in South Africa, cultural heritage.

Build authority so clients/readers see you as indispensable.

Partnering with and leveraging AI in business model

Maybe you offer hybrid products: some AI-assisted content at lower cost and premium human-authored content at higher cost.

Use predictive analytics, recommendation engines, personalisation to better serve audience.

Use AI for marketing, SEO, content optimisation, etc, to boost reach.

Conclusion

So, will AI kill your job? Probably not – at least not the kind of job that does human, thoughtful, nuanced travel writing. But it will transform it. Some tasks will be automated or devalued; others will become more prized. Whether your work is diminished or enhanced depends a lot on strategy.

My conclusion on the ChatGPT response:

This reminds me a little of Mars attacks, a movie in which fleets of super-sophisticated aliens surround the world’s major cities in their deadly spacecraft and all of humanity waits to see if the extraterrestrial visitors have, as they claim, “come in peace”. And you know what happens next.

A second opinion

So, not completely satisfied, I went knocking on the door of Perplexity AI with the same question. Its reply, in essay form:

AI and independent publishing: Can they coexist?

On a Saturday morning in the Karoo, you might find a writer at a trestle table outside the local co-op. The books on display are self-published, printed in small runs and sold one at a time. Passers-by pause, thumb through the pages and recognise places and faces inside. A sale is made, and with it comes a conversation, a story and the beginning of trust.

Now, imagine the other side of the publishing universe. At the click of a button, an artificial intelligence system produces 50 “books” overnight: generic travel guides, self-help manifestos, even faux-memoirs stitched together from digital scraps. No Karoo dust, no small-town voices, no real road behind it. Just words.

This is the reality independent publishers face in 2025. The question is not whether AI is here – it is – but whether it can coexist with the fragile, human-made world of independent publishing.

The threat

For those of us who’ve made a life out of words, AI feels like a gale blowing across the plains.

Flood of content: AI can generate enormous volumes of text for free. Online retailers and ebook platforms are already cluttered with thousands of machine-written titles. The glut makes it harder for an independent publisher’s work to stand out.

Devaluation of writing: when readers encounter “free” or cheap AI books, the expectation shifts. Why pay R250 for a Karoo travel story when an algorithm can offer a guidebook for R25?

Homogenisation: AI thrives on patterns. Its stories often feel like they’ve been boiled down to a bland soup of clichés. But the danger lies in the casual reader not noticing – in thinking this is “good enough”.

For a small-press publisher who depends on each book being noticed, bought and treasured, this looks like an existential threat.

The tool

But look again. Just as the windmill on a Karoo farm can be either a noise in the night or the engine that draws life-giving water, AI is a tool – depending on how you use it.

Research companion: it can sift through old newspaper archives, dig out references and summarise government reports in seconds. That saves the writer weeks of trawling through dusty files.

Production help: editing, indexing, keyword optimisation and metadata entry are chores every independent publisher knows. AI can shoulder much of this burden, leaving more time for actual storytelling.

Accessibility: a writer in Prince Albert or Murraysburg can use AI to produce instant translations, text-to-speech audiobooks, or summaries that reach wider audiences.

AI will never feel the Karoo cold in its bones, but it can carry boxes of type for you.

The human edge

So, what remains exclusively ours? Everything that truly matters.

A good book is not simply a collection of words; it’s a transmission of experience. When we write about the Karoo, we write about red dust on boots, the smell of witblits in a shed, the laughter in a dorpskroeg. We write about people – their quirks, their memories, their silences.

AI doesn’t know what it’s like to sit on the stoep of the Karoo Art Hotel at Barrydale, watching the last bikers of the day roll down Route 62. It can’t walk into a Karoo saloon and hear the band tuning up. It can simulate only the shape of such sentences, never the pulse behind them.

That’s where independent publishing has an advantage. Readers crave voice, authenticity and trust. They want to know who wrote the book, why and where the story came from. They want to sense the fingerprints on the page.

The coexistence

The future is not “AI or indie”. It’s AI and indie – but on our terms.

Independent publishers will survive by:

Leaning into humanity: write stories no machine can invent. Put your voice, your humour, your scars on the page.

Curating, not just creating: readers will need trusted guides through the noise. Independent publishers become gatekeepers of quality in a sea of sludge.

Owning the niche: just as craft brewers thrive alongside industrial beer, small publishers can thrive by offering handcrafted, regional, soulful work.

Using AI in the engine room, not the driver’s seat: let the machine manage admin, while the writer handles the words that matter.

The long view

We’re heading for a two-tier literary world:

At the bottom: mass-produced, machine-written pulp that floods online shops.

At the top: carefully made, human-driven works that command loyalty and fair prices.

Independent publishing belongs to the latter tier. It will not compete on speed or scale, but on honesty, storytelling and the intimate bond between writer and reader.

Closing scene

Picture that Karoo trestle table again. A new customer picks up your book, reads the back cover and says, “I know this place – I’ve driven this road.” A conversation follows, and the reader walks away with your book under their arm.

No algorithm can replicate that moment. It is as handmade as the stone walls in the veld, as local as the stories whispered on a stoep at sunset.

AI and independent publishing can coexist, yes – but only if we remain true to the dust, the people and the voices that no machine can ever conjure.

My conclusion on Perplexity AI’s response:

Well, apart from the fact that we don’t flog our books outside small-town co-ops on Saturday mornings, that’s a pretty encouraging prospect – AI and indie publishing hand in hand down the lane, like Pooh and Piglet at sunset.

My question, however: who is the Piglet in this scenario?

Litnet

Bye-bye and thanks to AI

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Who is the Piglet in this scenario?

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