I am an Aquarius. A techno baby. I jive with tech—I get it. Software, at least, but I will be the first to admit that the recent generative AI developments hit me differently than anything that has come before. After the first blush of excitement wore off, a dread settled in. Oh, yes, there was the dread of job loss with the image generators (which proved true for me some ten months later as I lost some of my main streams of art income), but the fear was more than that. It was deeper. And it was profound.
If we let a program write for us, then we lose that undefinable connection to ourselves. Words, themselves, will become meaningless. Words will lose their power.
Since the written word, and perhaps before, we have, subconsciously or consciously, known the power of words. It’s the basis for my uncompleted short story, “Word Magic.” Words are magic, mystical, spiritual. They’ve been used for time out of mind to create, to help thoughts and ideas come into being. They shape our beliefs, our actions, our societies. It’s why words have been entrusted to our deepest thinkers and feelers. We venerate those words because they hold significant meaning to us. Words are not random, predictive strings, but the basis of our worldly manifestations, of everything we think, do, feel, create. They possess vibrations when wielded for us or others. They shape us—our events and reality, what we believe in, what holds our attention, what heals or destroys.
Words create.
What happens when we no longer are the creators of words and simply agree with what is written for us by a program hailed as our intellectual superior?
What do we start believing about ourselves and the world around us when we become too lazy, or take on learned helplessness, to allow ourselves the time and reflection to discover what we truly want to express? To discover the unique amalgamations in our own brains, fostered by our lifetimes of experiences and feelings? Can we use AI to help us make those discoveries or will it usurp our own internal processes because it’s faster, easier, instantly accessible? Is there an in-between that can enhance our abilities without losing our central connection to our authentic selves?
In my fascination with these new Large Language Models, I’ve experimented. A lot. I’ve brainstormed, critiqued, written poems and stories, marketing material, had “therapy” sessions with different chat models.
I get the appeal of quick answers and even speedier writing. I feel gleeful when I hit upon the off-chance, emotionally resonant text generation. Some of this is incredibly helpful in a time-saving way. It’s true that you can use it for your less critical tasks. Maybe even free up time (though, for me, it’s been increasing my time spent! Maybe that will change as more integration saturates our work world.). In our productivity-demanding world, perhaps this can be a boon to some of our time issues. It may be the toolbox and support system creative writers have been waiting for, but not if we don’t pay attention to what’s working and what’s not. For different writers, the ‘work’ and ‘don’t work’ may be highly variable.
For myself, whenever I write assisted or full-on with a chatbot, I am left with two very distinct emotions:
- Disconnect
- Imposter Syndrome
Let’s tackle disconnect first. When I read back what the program has written, I feel no real connection to the words 99 percent of the time. (I will admit to a rare 1 percent occurrence of alignment with my own intent, and I love it when this occurs.) The narrative is professionally written, yes, but connected? For the most part, no. And let’s not even discuss the distinctiveness of human “voice,” as there is little, even when attempting to “mimic” writing trained on my own style. It’s as if an extraterrestrial has written it. And there is no real way to edit an emotional core into the passage.
Recently, I saw a post on ‘how to write 10,000 words per hour using AI.’ I asked myself, what is the point of producing ten thousand disconnected and inauthentic words to blast into the world as more spam? What is the point of writing so much that the world can’t possibly consume all that writing? We’re already in a word glut. To produce more of the countless, thoughtless trillions of words vying for our attention so that the “author” can hope to make a quick buck? To what point do we need to write more, faster? To regurgitate what’s already written in a perhaps different arrangement, with no meaning or intention behind those words?
Words deserve more respect than this.
And I realize not everyone using AI assistance is using it to spam for a paycheck. In time, perhaps that type of usage will wane as more proliferation will force more creative and unique outputs to get noticed in all the word sludge. Perhaps it might force us to evaluate our own unique propositions. Perhaps it might force us to create more thoughtfully and more individually. Or, more collaboratively. I don’t know. I’m not a futurist.
What I do know is this: Whether non-fiction or dressed as fiction, in its highest form, the written word is meant to heal, expand knowledge, endow epiphanies, communicate, and share our deepest and most profound thoughts and emotions, change our narrow perspectives, broaden our visions, change the world.
The ability to deeply connect to what we want to express through written storytelling or other creative art forms is in danger of extinction if we don’t nurture the human capability to think deeply, authentically, choose, and wield our own words so they vibrate as a whole. (Could this be done through editing AI-generated text? Perhaps, though it hasn’t worked for me for reasons I’ll state below.) Like cursive and spelling going the way of the dinosaurs, or longhand, which has brain and creativity-enhancing benefits, is the ability to identify what we truly want to creatively express yet another human practice we want to lose?
In some instances, AI can help those who can’t, for whatever reason, express themselves. For some, it can certainly be a useful, even necessary tool. But for others, do we simply settle for agreeing to an approximation of what we actually want to say? Or do we choose each word based on our own feelings, experiences, perspectives, and voice to create a vibrational whole that rings with our entire being?
Some may believe words are simply utilitarian, to get a point across, their choice and arrangement a matter of practicality. But as a lover of language and expression, I know that when I write, I choose words with precision, not only for their meaning but their sound, their rhythm, their tendency to evoke sensations or visualization. Sometimes this is even a subconscious decision. I won’t know why I’ve done what I’ve done until someone points it out. Our brains and creativity are still unknown territories in many respects. But that whole of each word’s choosing combines into a symphony far greater than “predicting the next word.” Each rings with the intention of the whole. Each adds to the greater meaning, the intent behind the narrative.
Have you ever heard the phrase, “No tears from the author, no tears from the reader?”
When we write, our beautiful brains are sorting through millions of word choices to pick precisely the right one, in the right order, with the right rhythm to express the thought and feeling running through our beings at that moment.
AI can’t do that. AI’s word choice is built on logic, data, and probability. Void of intentionality, void of actual experience, void of feeling.
Which would have a better chance of communicating with another human?
Heartfelt words or hollow ones?
Suppose we allow AI to produce a “close approximation” or “reasonable simulation” of predictive text to become our dominant mode of written communication (news articles, fiction stories, articles, poetry, texts, and emails). Would we lose our ability to express ourselves with written language? Muscles that aren’t exercised can’t grow. Over time, they deteriorate. Is authentic creative written expression a muscle we want to atrophy? Or is it something we should nurture with our time, attention, and the slowness of our own human limitations?
Let’s deal with the second item on the list: imposter syndrome. If I write a story or poem with AI, it feels like cheating. I think, “Wow. That was good. But it’s not me.” (Not all the time. Sometimes I think, “Holy wow, AI, what were you thinking?” But it feels fraudulent. I don’t think this is because it’s new technology but a fundamental human value of knowing you take credit for the work you do, not the work of others. I can get behind collaborative work if it is stated as such and not presented as one’s own—who knows? Maybe AI will move us away from individualism and into collective writing, though I’d argue the individual voice still holds value, maybe more so in such a scenario. I’m also not talking about brainstorming or research (e.g., please give me a list of ten popular girls names in 1910 that mean gift) but full-on development and prose writing. Not only does it disconnect me from an ability to resonate with the entire narrative, but it feels as if it’s not my own. That I’m deceiving readers and will be outed. That I’m lip-syncing while someone better sings the track. Some of us already struggle with a profound sense of self-doubt. While AI might help others express themselves, for me, it makes me question my own abilities and even my reasons for writing in the first place. It makes me doubt my feelings, thoughts, perspective, and voice. It makes me think, “Why bother?” when AI can do it good enough, faster, with fewer mistakes. As a people-pleaser, it’s just too tempting to let AI override my own sensibilities and strip my voice. To steer me away from my core reasons for writing in the first place: authentic self-expression.
I write to discover and understand myself, others, and the world around me. I write to express those discoveries, and the act of writing transforms me on some level. I grow through the act. I process my thoughts and pains. I share my loves and joys. I heal, not through reading what is written for me (though that provides benefits) but by writing myself—stretching within myself, breaking past my boundaries to find what’s inside and what needs to be processed into whatever form I release it into, be it fiction, non-fiction, poetry, or art. I change by making those startlingly new perspectives about myself, others, and the world around me. It reshapes my world.
But suppose I am disconnected from the process, due to AI writing for me, or if I manipulate my words to fit into market demand and please others. In that case, I lose any benefit for myself and others who may have resonated with the words I chose to immortalize on the page. I become inauthentic. I become fake. I become the person who says “I love you” when I couldn’t care less.
We need less superficiality, not more.
We need the profound truths of ourselves, not the quick and superficial answers.
Questionable ethics aside*, I am not saying AI has no place in the world. If big tech promises prove true, AI might enhance our world, health, well-being, environment, and planet in mind-blowingly helpful ways. I’m not throwing out its capacity for good, and I’m certainly not qualified to predict the future. Neither am I condemning using assistance in whatever way that feels connected and authentic in your output. I am also not suggesting that people with writing challenges, language barriers, or physical limitations shouldn’t use AI; this may be a boon for them in finally being heard or achieving long-starved dreams. I believe AI can be used, even for writers, in a beneficial way without disconnection.
But, at least for me, not if I let AI do the “expressing” for me. Not if I just agree with its outputs and claim them as my own (I would never do this, btw). Not if I don’t learn the hard work of creative expression myself (digging deep, finding my truths, knowing what works and what doesn’t and why) and how to wield it. Not if I don’t understand the power and potential of words to shape me, others, and our societies.
Perhaps this is a plea for mindfulness as we all navigate these quickly changing creative waters. We ought to decide when and how we use the technology, so we don’t lose that vital ability to express ourselves authentically through writing and other creative endeavors. That we continue to exercise our expressive abilities as a core human activity that keeps us healthy, sane, thinking, questioning, and evolving.
I hear it a lot: AI is a tool. It should not be used to usurp human expression. Ever. I believe human expression and unique voices will become more valuable as soon as all the “using AI to write for profit proliferation” becomes tiresome—which, to me, is right about now.
I get that this is a confusing time. I get that we’re going to experiment and often fail with those experiments and our successes may be few. I also get that others might be feeling as rudderless as I am when the future of our writing passion is so unclear.
But I, for one, am craving authentic voices. Real connections. Real feelings and emotions. Unique perspectives. Narratives that sing with an original perspective that only life experience, depth of feeling, and authentic expression can create. I bet others are, too.
In the meantime, I will keep writing. Keep expressing. Keep being unapologetically slow, thoughtful, intentional, and connected. I’ll keep experimenting. I’ll keep discovering my whats and whys and hows. I’ll keep failing and having successes. It may take time. I may change my mind and direction. But through it all, I’ll keep being human, because losing my creative connection, authenticity, and ability to resonate with the words I put on the page, is not an option.
* AI Ethics is a topic unto itself which I will not address here. But it also plays into a creative person’s ability to decide when and how they use AI tools. The scraping and training of datasets on copyrighted material has not been decided by our governing systems yet. As a creative, I am especially interested in the outcomes of these rulings though I also realize that outcomes may not be entirely based on facts and fairness but on a multitude of other factors such as economics and politics. As for my opinion, I believe AI training was unethical simply because, even if courts ruled that the process is transformative, the public was unaware of what was happening to their personal and copyrighted data. It is already affecting marketplaces (including ones I am directly affected by). Advancement should not overrule personal agency in how their data and works are used. We should have a choice. For this reason, using AI brings even more complexity to deciding whether to use it. Unfortunately, I believe the integration of AI on a broader scale is inevitable, regardless of individual choices. So, for me, the question becomes, how do I stay true to myself? In these journal entries, I’m exploring what creativity means to me. What the benefits are to me, to others, and to society. How I proceed in a technologically advancing world. How to keep going or when to give up. How to overcome the many challenges creatives face-technical or otherwise. Of course, I don’t have the answers. I can only share my journey and perhaps, start, continue, or add to the discussion that is affecting us all.
CREDITS:
Music: Capcut
Writing, Filming, Editing, and Animation: Mande Matthews
Editing: C.K. Brooke
“Sunflowers” artwork – Original Pen & Ink with Watercolor and Gouache by Mande Matthews
WRITING PROCESS FOR THIS POST:
- Longhand journal entry
- Transcribed and second drafted via keyboard/Word
- Grammarly check
- Human editing and feedback (C.K. Brooke)
- Revision
- Asked ChatGPT to flag possible mistruths, lacks in clarity – fact checked
- Revision, grammar check in Word, read out loud with Word
- Grammarly final check inside my WordPress post