I think emails summarizing meetings, or making a case for something, or describing something, match the kind of writing PG means in his essay.
And like the commenter you're replying to, I think that LLMs today can write far better than your average coworker (assuming they don't go on a hallucinated tangent; then again some coworkers also do!).
So it's fair to compare LLMs and work emails.
Not to speak of work wiki pages (Confluence etc) describing technical things, decisions, policies, etc.
Why do you think pg is writing about emails and meeting notes? I don't readily see anything in the piece to suggest that. 'making a case for something' or 'describing something' covers the bulk of writing, the piece is quite explicit about not being about all writing.
It seems to me there is no difference in kind between an email arguing for or examining an important decision or idea, and an "essay" on an important decision or idea.
I definitely don't think these documents are just "written speech". Some emails are—a quick message asking if you'll be in the office tomorrow, for example—but major ones require significantly more thought.
It seems to me there is no difference in kind between an email arguing for or examining an important decision or idea, and an "essay" on an important decision or idea.
Why are there people who make a living as, say, newspaper opinion columnists or magazine staff writers? Or hell, why aren't we all rich substackers given that writing a substack is literally email?
And like the commenter you're replying to, I think that LLMs today can write far better than your average coworker (assuming they don't go on a hallucinated tangent; then again some coworkers also do!).
So it's fair to compare LLMs and work emails.
Not to speak of work wiki pages (Confluence etc) describing technical things, decisions, policies, etc.