Handprints in caves, love letters, bedtime stories, postcards, train station graffiti, wedding invites, cafe menus, ‘get home safe’ text messages, writing and sharing stories is so human. We are beings, fortunate enough to have the ability to create. Mostly, we write to share with others, inspire a revolution, or to demand our existence be recognised!
This is what writing does; it gives agency, hope, and power.
So, why do some people use generative artificial intelligence (AI) to write everything for them? From entire novels and songs to social media captions and weekly shopping lists. What does it mean when we willingly give our voices, and subsequently, our power, away? What are we left with?
A good story is one written by a human, and no two humans can write the same story because we all have unique experiences, perspectives and ideas. But if you want to use AI to write a book, you don’t want to write a book, you want to have written a book (which is far less impressive and cool by the way). Much of the craft is lost when you run it through AI. The beauty of a story is the work that goes into it; the multiple drafts, world building, characterisation, peer feedback. Even the phrases we use to avoid cliches are uniquely human. AI cannot create a new metaphor the way a human can, because AI cannot create anything new at all. It’s literally impossible because AI absorbs information, stirs it around and spits it back out in a different font- it’s the ‘three racoons in a trench coat’ of creativity.
Every AI server reflects what it’s been fed. It’s data and algorithms; it doesn’t know how to empathise with a character or say anything meaningful (it barely says anything at all). AI writing will always lack empathy and creativity, and it’ll never have an original plot or important message. It simplifies human complexity, dulls diversity, and I haven’t even mentioned how it’s incredibly harmful to our planet. AI uses more than one bottle of water to write a 100 word email. You cannot expect something artificial to create something real, something important and relatable and meaningful. AI doesn’t have ideas, it recognises patterns. It doesn’t have emotional depth, it has a data bank of human writing. It is literally stealing from actual creators. Using AI doesn’t make you a better writer, it doesn’t make you a better anything. It just makes you lazy.
Generative AI couldn’t have written The Hunger Games, or 1984, or even Twilight. And that’s the point. If we use AI for simple tasks, we forget how to do them; if we don’t have to think, we don’t get to know. The people and companies encouraging AI use (for any reason) don’t want us to use our brains, to think critically, comment on the world around us, and what it’s turning into. They want us numb, ill-informed and easily entertained. An ignorant population can be easily manipulated.
And aren’t our jobs as students, as leaders of the next generation; to question authority and build a better system, to learn from the past and do better? The more we submit to mindless ways of doing simple, human things, the less of our critical and creative thinking we’re left with, and the more power we give to those currently in charge. We are losing our basic survival skills, and with them our humanity and hope for a better future.
So don’t ask ChatGPT to edit your essays or give you a recipe. Don’t encourage the algorithms or ignore your friend’s sudden inability to skim read a textbook chapter. Every comic, every text message, every birthday card you write is rebellious and beautiful and human. Do the work. Do it badly- terribly even! Write a cheesy poem to your friend. Write an email with way too many exclamations marks and sign off with a smiley face. Write the craziest fanfiction you can think of, misplace all your commas and make so many spelling mistakes. Just make sure you’re writing. Creativity is a muscle, and you must use it. You must be aware of how our world is changing, and what that means for those less privileged than you. You must be critical. You must be conscious. You can’t change the world if you can’t imagine a new one.
