5 Reasons This Writer Isn’t Afraid of AI
I always think I should be more concerned about AI taking jobs from writers like me. But honestly, I’m not. This year I’m gearing up to teach a digital writing class in Paris and one of my lessons throughout the class will be constant: writers will always matter.
That message, however, is anything but tinged with technophobia.
The hype over AI is well-founded and well-discussed. I won’t rehash it all. As a society we’ve hyped things in the past from the printing press to the Internet, always fearing the worst and then folding them meringue-like into the batter of our lives. And yet here we are, working, moving forward, doing things, and always creating.
And as a writer, I am confident that there will still be plenty to do in the future, even if it’s a little different, a little altered, and a little AI-infused. So what are some main reasons I’m not afraid of AI writing applications?
1. People Enjoy Creating Too Much
I love to write. What a dumb, unoriginal statement from a, well, writer, but no truer expression exists. While AI may upend so much of the writing industry, it can’t stop writers from exercising their passion. God knows that writing isn’t a means to great financial fortune, but there is something so innately human about it, like the unbeatable urge to blow on a dandelion or the way we inexplicably say, “It’s me” when someone asks who is there. We just do it.
It’s in our nature, even if the payout will never be big, so AI won’t hamper that anytime soon in the same way that color printers don’t stop artists from painting. Maybe it’s just the dopamine hit we get from producing stories and achieving goals, but it’s something that AI won’t stop.
2. There is No “AI Experience”
But there is a human experience, and it’s wacky, absurd, unpredictable, and entirely beautiful. AI does not experience on its own, insofar as I, or anyone really, understands it. It can create a scenario out of thin air – if fed the proper molecules, of course – but it cannot live or experience or have emotions.
It feels silly to have to say that because of how many sentient robots we have all cozied up to through TV and cinema, but as much as I love C-3PO, I’d never considered shedding a tear at any instance of his potential demise. Because he is a robot, and has no feelings, and has no lived experiences. And if you are going to argue that, you need to reevaluate your life.
3. Audiences Will Get Bored
Hype is never forever – sort of its defining quality – and audiences are fickle – also sort of their thing. AI will eventually fade into the background just like every other hyped-up tech that my generation has seen (Where did Furby go? Who is feeding my Tamagotchi? Is my iPad charged?).
What’s different about AI is that, unlike Furby, who is collecting dust, we’ll incorporate AI writing tools into much of what we do. It will become so commonplace that people won’t even know or care – unless we incorporate it badly, of course. I’m trying to imagine a news byline that just reads, “AI Generated” and wanting to read the rest. It doesn’t seem possible, not yet anyway. Audiences will hit their limit and move on to something else, leaving human writers to clean up the mess and put AI in its place more strategically.
4. New Markets Will Emerge
The cool thing about AI – like the internet around the year 2000 – is the total lack of anticipating what’s next. Who could have imagined anything like Twitter back in the 20th century? We’re knocking on a very similar door with AI right now, trying to guess giddily who or what will be on the other side.
Rather than imagine AI will wipe away all we know, let’s get excited about how it will present new opportunities and markets. Perhaps fully human written books will become like vinyls. Vintage, but coveted. Perhaps human writers will become consultants for tech corporations the way journalists consulted during the digitalization of the media in the early 2000s. Who knows where the money will be!
Buzzfeed and HuffPost did not kill the New York Times or Washington Post – they pushed their evolution. AI is going to do just that – but how remains to be seen!
We’re knocking on a very similar door with AI right now, trying to guess giddily who or what will be on the other side.
5. AI Needs Humans
Well, for now at least. We can feed language patterns to AI from the 18th century if we needed to and get AI to produce content as if it were a founding father, but what about the language of tomorrow? Language lives and grows, forever evolving within each culture, borrowing and remixing and retiring words and phrases constantly. AI can keep up with it, but no without someone feeding it.
Human writers will continue to be at the forefront of what’s culturally du jour. Language and culture are forever linked. The very first definition of “culture” in Merriam-Webster is:
the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group; also : the characteristic features of everyday existence (such as diversions or a way of life) shared by people in a place or time
AI is not human. AI is not social. AI will never produce culture. Mimickeries, sure. Copies, yes. But true – dare I say authentic – culture? No.
So let’s approach Bard and ChatGPT with less technophobia and more techno-optimism, letting it solve problems where needed instead of creating fresh problems, and hopefully it’s future will be chronicled efficiently and accurately, bylined by some hard-working journalism student of the future who kept an open mind and who read The Elements of Style.