The work of editors in the age of AI

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The work of editors in the age of AI

Published: 05 Mar. 2026, 00:04

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Lee Eun-hye

The author is the CEO of the publishing house Geulhangari.

Around 2010, a few years after I became an editor, a notable shift began to take shape in publishing. Some large publishing houses started assigning editors only to planning, while removing them from the editing process itself. An editor’s job consists of both planning and editing, yet most of the time is spent refining manuscripts. A proposal cannot be written according to a fixed template, nor does it simply emerge from trend reports. Recruiting authors is important, but a book’s quality ultimately depends on editing.

A customer looks at books at a bookstore in Seoul on Feb. 2, 2025. [YONHAP]

Carefully adjusting the nuances of words and sentences, filling gaps in logic, reorganizing ideas to support an intellectual structure, smoothing rough passages and exercising restraint are skills that form the foundation for discovering the next author. Yet, the devaluation of editing often begins within the industry itself. A culture emerged that treated editing as inexpensive labor, and a decline in quality was regarded as unremarkable. Many editors have produced books without ever feeling like craftsmen.

Even before artificial intelligence heightened skepticism toward writing and translation, editors were already being pushed to redefine their roles in ways that led them to doubt their own work. One refrain was that editors should adopt the mindset of marketers. Time once spent comparing translations with original texts was diverted to social media promotion and digital content. Errors and typos were tolerated. The buzzword “cost-effectiveness” spread without scrutiny. If editors of an earlier era were expected to be as sharp as needles, today they are urged to become blunt knives. As practical books dominate the market, those aspiring to edit humanities titles find themselves in a climate where the sense of what is good and worthwhile has little space to grow.

More recently, as meeting readers has gained importance, the editor’s role has expanded toward curation. A few days ago, I asked AI how the role of editors should change. The answer was simple: leave proofreading and press releases to AI and focus on curation. Yet, without mobilizing one’s intellect and emotions to attend to textual details, an editor can scarcely feel a sense of purpose. The sensitivity to beauty risks erosion.

The meaning of work has been diminished for years. Doing less and outsourcing more has been portrayed as a way to concentrate on more dignified tasks. But there is no life without process. Without engaging directly in the work, neither experience nor self-respect accumulates. If editors limit themselves to adjusting AI-generated outputs, especially in writing, they may feel they have never truly lived through the act of creation.

People read books themed around the sea at the “Beach Book Lounge” during the Gwangalli Beach Book Fair, held at Manam Plaza on Gwangalli Beach in Busan on the afternoon of Sept. 20, 2025. [YONHAP]

How should we respond to AI? The idea that “what you do yourself becomes yours” does not refer only to personal satisfaction. It concerns the embodiment of knowledge and everyday sensibility. Editing sentences is an intense interaction with text. Through it, an editor absorbs the author’s thinking, senses the language of the era and gains discernment. Without directly handling the tools of thought, editors cannot cultivate self-correction or self-criticism. Planning ability is a flower that blooms atop the sediment of thousands of revised sentences. The danger lies not in inefficiency but in the evaporation of direct experience.

Will such painstaking labor retain market value as AI surpasses human precision? In some sectors, insistence on manual work will be seen as unnecessary cost. In others, the visible traces of human refinement will guarantee quality. Many readers still seek narratives shaped by discernment. As Richard Sennett once wrote, “People can learn about themselves through the things they make.” In a moment of disorientation, I choose to read more and read more carefully, determined to make the book an object with greater integrity, even amid doubt and dismissal.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.