There really is nothing quite like homemade fresh bread that nourishes the body and the soul, just like good writing can.
I am concerned, and I am not alone, when I say there is a growing impasse between people’s positions on AI in communication and design. The challenges brought by AI have given us many new problems to work on, and the rightful criticisms and calls for caution suggest that the technology should be avoided and resisted entirely. By employing a metaphor rooted in one of humanity’s oldest and most relatable practices: bread-making, I hope to help us move forward from the current stalemate on the topic.
Just as the practice of bread-making ranges in scale from at home baking to industrial production, our communication practices range from deeply personal, artisanal engagements to highly automated processes. Bread making is a relatable metaphor that offers us a nuanced perspective to support the mediation of strong arguments on both sides of AI use. Like bread making, the use of AI is about more than picking sides, but the urgency surrounding the disruption caused by AI has led to a false dichotomy, a should we or shouldn’t we discussion. In this article, I seek to facilitate dialogue that acknowledges complexity, fosters mutual discussion, and enables thoughtful responses to AI’s appearance within our fields.
The Situation
Over the past two years, a friend and colleague of mine and I have walked and talked about the state of AI research in Technical and Professional Communication (TPC). We’ve walked, and talked, countless miles and hours, on these topics and more innumerable. Sometimes we are quite productive—develop platforms for exploring AI and the future of communication like Techneforge.com (n.d.), design, draft and test user cases or feature articles on artificially generating personas and using AIUI interfaces alongside graphic ones (Vance, 2024; Gallagher, 2024) , we’ve also sowed ideas behind conference presentations and for foundational articles on AI (Getto, Kelley, & Vance, 2025). Other times, we find our discourse rambling, bombastic, erratic, and even defeated when discussion of our fears, institutional policies, uncanny tool outputs, or the turmoil of communication job markets arise.
We have discussed, at different times and frequently: what it can and cannot do (Runco, 2023), psychosocial responses and behaviors toward AI (Hohenstein et al., 2023), what a definition of AI literacy can and should address (ByKov & Medvedeva, 2024), the genre of prompt engineering (Bansal, 2024), the state of literature on AI in the field (Reeves & Sylvia, 2024) and the endless job of keeping up with the cutting edge (Sloyan, 2023, Aug. 23). We have considered the ethical questions of AI use—by students, faculty, industries, anyone—have been asked, addressed, answered and asked again every few weeks or months when a new tool would come out or a new function or operational insight emerged (Ranade & Saravia, 2024).
Perhaps most importantly, we have wondered how to discover or develop approaches for rising to these new challenges, and helping others learn and teach about AI—agentic, algorithmic, generative, singular—you name it (Liboni et al, 2025; Koytan et al. 2024). In this question, we often examine what appears to be the diametrically opposed positions of AI advocates (folks drinking the panacea producing culture of cool-aid) versus those who resist AI (folks forming a human rebellion against a corporate juggernaut).
To be clear, these groups are amalgamations, much like user personas. They are forged from AI rhetoric on listservs, blogs and posts on professional and social media, web and journal articles across writing studies, composition and rhetoric, technical and professional communication, and in presentations at conferences and in Keynote speeches (Mudd 2025; Dusseau, 2024; Card & Duin, 2023; Sano-Franchini, McIntyre, & Fernandez, n.d.). And whenever these personas present themselves, we find that those they represent are often just as polarized as the rest of American culture, but instead of politics, its over AI—the good, the bad, the ugly, and the unknown.
The problem here is that this polarization breeds entrenchment, and entrenchment leads to a complete breakdown of conversation. Discussion (including disagreement) is necessary for us to learn, to move forward, to define literacy, to discern appropriate and inappropriate uses of AI in the work of communication and design. But, for these things to happen, we must talk.
Again, my colleague and I are troubled greatly by the unproductive stalemate around AI that is congealing within the communications disciplines. And I am attempting an exegesis of our fraught AI dialogue in this moment, in this space and time. I feel compelled to return to the page and voice my thoughts, however unpopular they might be to both, dare I say, sides?
I dare; I dare to disrupt this Cartesian duality. And I want to start with the metaphor of bread making.
The Art of (Bread) Making
After millennia of hunting and gathering, humans learned to make bread. According to Arranz-Otaegui et al. (2018), the earliest anthropological evidence of bread making comes from 14,400 years ago in the northern deserts of Jordan. Since this time, of course, the means of bread production has changed considerably, but the core ingredients have altered little. Bread, at its most basic, is baked from a dough of grain flour (usually milled wheat) and water. It may be leavened (include a raising agent like organic microbes, baking soda, or yeast) or unleavened (e.g., tortillas, matzo, crepes, or other flatbreads). Regardless, bread making marks a turning point in human history, the dawn of agriculture, and holds a special place in the spiritual and cultural practices of humanity (Sabrina, 2006). One may go so far as to say that the making of bread is part of the quintessential human experience. The strength of this fact is not lost on me when I say, “writing with and without AI is like the act of making bread.”
Let Me explain.
Making bread by hand, just like writing, is a physical and mental process of production. As we weigh, heat, mix, and process the ingredients to form the dough ourselves, the bread is made. When writing, we do these same types of actions with our thoughts, reading, syntheses, and words. The act of making bread from its humble beginning to today’s artisanal bakery remains much the same as it always has been—an act of creating, of embodiment, of self-care, of service, of pleasure.
If you have ever baked a loaf of bread yourself for a special event or holiday, you may relate to what I mean when I talk highly of the lived experience of bread making. But, even if you have only ever eaten someone else’s homemade bread, you may still have an idea of the positive experience I iterate. There really is nothing quite like homemade fresh bread that nourishes the body and the soul, just like good writing can.
Now, before we move into any discussion of AI, I want us to consider our current relationship to bread. Some of us may bake bread for holidays only, some for special occasions too, others even for occasional fun and enjoyment, but I would wager many of us do not have time to bake all the bread for ourselves and our families every day or even every week. So, what do we do?
We buy our bread when we do not make it.
(Aside: now, to be clear, I know some readers may say, ‘I don’t eat bread.’ And that is okay, of course, but please stick with me. I promise we are going to meaningful places still.)
In fact, bread is a huge industry. According to Statistia (2024), based on data from the US Census and the Simmons National Consumer Survey, 335.5 million Americans ate bread last year. Innova Market Insights (2024, Oct. 2) reports that 72% of American consumers bought bread or bread products in the last year, and 1 in 3 individuals eats bread four or more times a week. Most of this bread is bought at the supermarket, and of that, 91% of bread sold in the USA comes from industrial bakeries, only 9% from retail and artisan bakers.
Even though bread making at home has increased in popularity in recent years (Corvington, 2020, Aug. 26), the most recent survey of home-bakers I can find reports that 72% only make their own bread once a month (Nobel, 2001). So, logically, most of the bread we consume comes from a supermarket or grocery store, and most of that bread comes from industrial bakeries. Therefore, most of the bread we eat is made by a machine, designed by people of course, but the product is rarely, if ever, touched by human hands. And, when we are in a hurry to eat, making our children lunch, or even going to the cafeteria or restaurant, it seems that we don’t care if our bread is industrially baked or made-by-hand.
Let me stop right here. It would be unthinkable to suggest that the bread we buy in a bag at the market is the same as the bread we bake with care and attention at home. That would be heretical, and no one would believe a word I said in the rest of this article if I suggested such a thing. Even though the bag bread is not the same, it is often good enough. Much like formulaic writing is good enough—for emails, business letters, many genres, and most professional pleasantries. Bagged bread and generic writing are similar in that they ‘satisfy’ our needs in the moment, which are real needs.
At this point, I bet many readers can see where I am going with my metaphor. You may think, artisan bread making is like human-only writing, while industrial bread making is like writing with AI tools. That is partially right, but it does not account for the quality of the writing.
The quality of some human-only prose (including my own at times) is poor to middling at best. I am also short-changing what is possible when it comes to writing-well with AI, which can produce excellent content when crafted by an experienced agentive AI user working as the ‘human-in-the-loop‘ (Anders & Speltz, 2024). Both people with and without AI tools can produce good writing or bad writing, the difference is in the automation that is part of the process of the writing (or the bread making).
So, when I say, “writing with and without AI is like the act of making bread,” I mean that even though we can make bread by hand, we often get, even prefer the convenience of buying it in a bag. That is not something to be upset about. Instead, just maybe, we need to spend time talking about the bread in the bag to understand it, to find ways to make it better, to determine the best bag bread for different situations, or to learn which bread may go better with different meats, cheeses, or condiments.
We can’t and don’t need to fight over the bread or the bag.
You see, the inclusion of AI in our writing or not should not really be the question sparking deep discussions at this point because it is here; the bread in the bag is what we asked for when we wanted the daily grind to be easier. So, instead of quibbling over the bread and the bag, and if we should or should not use it, perhaps we should take time to think about the how, why and when, and not get hung up on the tool.
Rising to the challenge
To complicate the discussion, our choice for bread isn’t only between high-quality, healthy, delicious artisanal bread and poorly made industrial cardboard in a plastic bag. Writing too cannot be reduced to either human-made or machine-made either. The choice is far more complicated than either/or reductive arguments try to make it. Therefore, these types of discussions don’t offer much that is worthwhile—validation or vilification, depending on the side you are on. But there are many more and broader kinds of choices and decisions at play, and there are numerous types of oversight and consequences that need to be discussed.
We need to do more than articulate what we are for or against. We need to get our facts right; we need to learn more than we now know. Either/or arguments stand in the way of this learning because so much effort is spent on attacking and defending that forward progress, meaningful motion, is obstructed. The questions we need to be asking and the debates we should be having are about the outcomes we want—when should we write in a notebook, when should we seek out algorithmic help, how can we protect ourselves from excessive surveillance, who decides intellectual property rights, what are the quality differences that we value, and more.
There are many important questions we can be asking and answering that will shape how this technology moves forward in our lives and those of our students. But for our influence to have impact, we must move the discussion forward or the opportunity will pass us by.
A Call for Inclusive Dialogue
Sometimes we want artisan prose, we write to feel it, to live it, to share ourselves with others, just like baking fresh bread for our families. But other times we want the writing to be done, the task to be streamlined, the research support to be there for us, without committing so many precious resources to get the job done.
Whether we write with or without AI, bake bread or buy it, it is essential to our human nature not only to want, but to need both. For that reason, we need to move past digging into the fallacy of taking one side or the other in the AI debate. Instead, we can move forward with everyone weighing in on what we should and shouldn’t learn, use, write, trust, share, care about and do when it comes to AI and writing.
When you are ready, let’s break bread.
REFERENCES
Anders, A., & Speltz, E. (2024) Experimental learning design for artificial intelligence
and writing. Substack.com. https://abramanders.substack.com/p/experimental-learning-design-for
Arranz-Otaegui, A., Carretero, L. G., Ramsey, M. N., Fuller, D. Q., & Richter, T. (2018) Archaeobotanical evidence reveals the origins of bread 14,400 years ago in northeastern Jordan. PNAS, 11 July 2018. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1801071115
Bansal, P. (2024). Prompt engineering importance and applicability with generative AI. Journal of Computer and Communications, 12(1), 14-23. https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation?paperid=136500
Bykov, I. A., & Medvedeva, M. V. (2024). Media literacy and AI-technologies in digital communication: Opportunities and risks,” In the 2024 Communication Strategies in Digital Society Seminar (ComSDS), Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation, 2024, pp. 21-24, doi: 10.1109/ComSDS61892.2024.10502053.
Card, D., & Duin, A. H. (2023). Generative AI: Productive Paths Forward Intercom. https://www.stc.org/intercom/2023/04/generative-ai-productive-paths-forward/
Corvington, I. (2020, Aug. 26). Baking bread is rising in popularity over quarantine. Silverchips.mbhs.edu. https://silverchips.mbhs.edu/content/baking-bread-is-rising-in-popularity-over-quarantine-32916/
Dusseau, M. (2024, Nov. 12). Burn it down: A license for AI resistance. InsideHigherEd.com. https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/views/2024/11/12/burn-it-down-license-ai-resistance-opinion
Gallagher, P. B. (2024) The death of the GUI. Techneforge.com https://techneforge.com/features/the-death-of-the-gui/
Getto, G., Kelley, S., & Vance, B. (2025). How to write with GenAI: A framework for using generative AI to automate writing tasks in technical communication. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/00472816251332208
Hohenstein, J., Kizilcec, R.F., DiFranzo, D. (2023). Artificial intelligence in communication impacts language and social relationships. Sci. Rep. 13, 5487. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-30938-9
Innova Market Insights (2024, Oct. 2). Bread industry in the US. Innovamarketinsights.com. https://www.innovamarketinsights.com/trends/bread-industry-in-the-us/
Kotyan, S., Ueda, T., & Vargas, D. V. (2024). k* Distribution: evaluating the latent space of deep neural networks using local neighborhood analysis, in IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems, doi: 10.1109/TNNLS.2024.3446509.
Liboni, L. H. B., Budzinski, R. C., Busch, A. N., Löwe, S., Keller, T. A., Welling, M. & Muller, L. E. (2025). Image segmentation with traveling waves in an exactly solvable recurrent neural network, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 122 (1) e2321319121, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2321319121.
Mudd, J. (2025). Why communication professionals shouldn’t resist generative AI. Forbes.com https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbesagencycouncil/2025/02/11/why-communication-professionals-shouldnt-resist-generative-ai/
Nobel, L. (2001). Americans still making bread from scratch, despite busy lives. Middletonwnpress.com. https://www.middletownpress.com/news/article/Americans-still-making-bread-from-scratch-11911678.php
Ranade, N., & Saravia, M. (2024). Teaching AI ethics in technical and professional communication: A systematic review,” in IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 67(4), pp. 422-436, doi: 10.1109/TPC.2024.3458708.
Reeves, C., & Sylvia, J. J. (2024). Generative AI in technical communication: A review of eesearch from 2023 to 2024. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 54(4), 439-462. https://doi.org/10.1177/00472816241260043
Runco, M. A. (2023) AI can only produce artificial creativity. Journal of Creativity, 33(3). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yjoc.2023.100063
Sano-Franchini, J., McIntyre, M., & Fernandez, M. (n.d.). Refusing GenAI in writing studies: A quick start guide. https://refusinggenai.wordpress.com/
Sabrina, Lady (2006). Exploring Wicca: The Beliefs, Rites, and Rituals of the Wiccan Religion. Career Press. ISBN 978-1-56414-884-1.
Sloyan, T. (2023, Aug. 23). To keep up with the AI revolution, we need to change how we learn. Forbes.com https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbestechcouncil/2023/08/23/to-keep-up-with-the-ai-revolution-we-need-to-change-how-we-learn/
Statistia (2024) U.S. population: Usage of bread from 2011 to 2024. Statistia.com. https://www.statista.com/statistics/281971/us-households-usage-of-bread-trend/
Techneforge.com (n.d.) Engineering the future of communication. TechneForge.com. www.techneforge.com
Vance, B. (2024). Developing user personas. Techneforge.com. https://techneforge.com/use_case/developing-learner-personas/