AI vs. Writing

Or, the point of writing things yourself

I find myself in a very interesting position these days, as an IT professional and a writer.

As an IT professional who studied AI and Neural Networks in college, I am interested in AI as a new method of computation. I believe that being able to communicate with computer systems in human language instead of complex programming languages is a step in the right direction for making technology more human-friendly.

On the other hand, as a writer, I cannot bring myself to use AI for creative writing or editing, even when a deadline looms over my head. As a Creative Writing MFA student, I have preferred submitting half-baked and late assignments rather than using AI to polish my prose or sharpen my arguments or hit the word-count. As a novelist I’d rather sit and agonize in front of my work-in-progress, instead of turning to AI for brainstorming. And I’m just talking about supporting activities here (editing, polishing, brainstorming). Letting AI write anything from scratch for me is a hard no.

This is not to say I haven’t tried using AI as a creative at all. I have, in fact, tried every single one of the above things at least once, including getting AI to write things from scratch. After trying all of it, I decided that I don’t want to use it for creative writing.

Why not? Because AI can produce beautiful prose, but it’s not my prose. It can generate arguments, but those are not my arguments. It can bring in facts that I didn’t know, but I didn’t research those facts. It can polish what I’ve written, but it isn’t my polish. In short, it’s not my writing.

And that’s my problem with using AI for anything writing-related. Ages ago, I did an online course about graphic novels on Coursera. Professor Kuskin hammered a concept home

Writing creates a persona.

That means, that when we read a piece of writing, we’re aware of a personality behind the words. Whether it’s fiction or non-fiction, on some level we are aware of a storyteller narrating the story to us. This is why people seek out their favorite authors on social media and listen to their interviews, because damn! that person made me feel seen or opened up my world in new ways and I can’t have enough of them! This is also why readers feel betrayed when they find out that their favorite author isn’t the cool, enlightened being that they imagined, but a bigot/sexual predator/any other unsavory variant of human being.

Whose personality shows up when you write with AI? Not yours, for sure. Having AI write for you feels similar to hiring a PR-agency to manage your social media handles and give you prepared answers for your interviews to curate a public image which may have little to do with your real personality.

Some people are okay with that. They may even feel like it’s still your authentic persona behind the words if the ideas are yours, but the words come from the machine. Or, perhaps they don’t think in those terms. Perhaps writing is mere business for them, and having another set of hands — human or non-human — is just a common-sense strategy for scaling up their business.

That part is not new. Long before computers existed, ghostwriters did. Alexandre Dumas used them way back then. James Patterson uses them, though he does give them credit as co-authors. These authors have/had no qualms about this arrangement. And I don’t begrudge anyone using ghostwriters or AI for their own business either. Unless someone is born rich, they need to make a living. I won’t judge anyone wanting to make money using AI as long as they’re not scamming or hurting anyone else.

I can’t use AI for the same reason I can’t imagine myself using a ghostwriter. For me, writing is the process of discovering and expressing some part of my real, authentic self that exists at a given time. I start writing with a few rough ideas in mind. Through the process of writing I discover the story that connects those ideas. In the process I discover some part of myself. I also have to research and learn new things to fill the gaps of my understanding. And I have to edit it for making it engaging and enjoyable for an invisible reader. As George Saunders put it:

You’re trying to make a really intimate communication with someone you don’t know, and you’re kind of trying to think the best of them while you do that.

George Saunders in conversation with Stephen Colbert

Sometimes the writing process is joyful and easy, sometimes it’s a frustrating slog, and sometimes it makes me feel inadequate and the enormity of it stops me dead in my tracks. Writing is such an intimate experience, that there’s nothing like it. If I try to skip this process and feed my rough ideas into AI, then the intimacy is broken. I may get beautiful prose and great arguments within seconds, but I’ll never get to know what I could have created. I’ll never get to unearth and articulate my deeper thoughts. I’ll never get to put a piece of myself out in the world. Where’s the satisfaction in that?

I understand the lure, though. The blank page can be intimidating. Using AI to get started seems like an attractive proposition. And sometimes, you have the feeling that your essay or story is missing something, but you can’t seem to put your finger on it. Asking AI to analyze it doesn’t seem so wrong then.

Sometimes, you may get feedback from another person which isn’t really helpful. I am reminded of the story of a writer whose stories weren’t selling and they called Harlan Ellison for advice. Harlan said something like ‘You’re not getting published because you’re writing crap. Stop writing crap!’ and cut the call. That advice may have been technically correct, but … what the fuck Harlan? An AI tool would’ve definitely given more substantial advice. What’s more, ChatGPT would have been much nicer to the writer than Harlan.

And what about research? How is using AI for research any different from using a search engine or going to a library? Or, how is asking AI to teach you writing different from doing an MFA? Isn’t it smart to save all that money and get the writing wisdom of all the great writers whose work has been used to train the AI?

These are all valid questions and I’m no authority on anyone else’s particular situation. That’s why, this essay has been all about explaining my choices. It’s not prescriptive. But I do want to give some advice to the young writer weighing these questions.

Writing requires a whole bunch of muscles. It requires your imaginative, cognitive, linguistic, critical, emotional and analytical muscles. If you don’t exercise a muscle, it atrophies. It’s the same logic as driving a car. You get to your destination faster, but you don’t get to exercise a whole bunch of your muscles that you could’ve if you had walked or biked. You always trade off something for your convenience.

So, this is my advice: be aware of your tradeoffs. The advantages of any technology are often clear and very well-marketed, but you have to figure out the tradeoffs for yourself. Use the tools you need, just make sure that the tradeoff is reasonable. The cost of efficiency and comfort could be your cognitive and linguistic skills, or the chance to be a part of a real-life writing community, or discovering your own voice.