Why I don’t want AI writing my story (or yours)

AI writes creepily well, as you’ve probably gathered by now. I’ve been keeping it at arm’s length for existential reasons. But to test the theory, for the first time ever, I just used it to come up with the headline above (along with another obnoxious option: “ChatGPT writes better than I do – but maybe that’s not the point”). Ahem.

For college students, it’s not hard to grasp the siren song of artificial intelligence at 2 a.m. as you’re staring down the prospect of a 9 a.m. deadline, luring you to abandon the hellish work of paper-writing and go live while you’re young and invincible?

I tried a classmate’s Adderall junior year of college, and ended up spending three hours responding to old emails instead of writing my paper – but with what bulletproof focus! If I’d had AI at my fingertips I would’ve used it. And maybe a decent night’s sleep would have been just as edifying as the War and Peace thesis I was agonizing over, with a sleeve of crackers and a Red Bull for sustenance.

I get why people use ChatGPT. I have the sinking feeling that we’re devoting humanity’s remaining resources to feeding this beast (have you heard we’re reopening Three Mile Island, the melted-down nuclear plant, to power data centers?). But I see the appeal.

The question that’s circumnavigating my skull is not whether AI is impressive, or whether people should use it – that ship has sailed. It’s more like: is it even worth writing anymore?

Are we graduating from that messy, vulnerable, laborious process, like we’ve outsourced our other chores to machines? Is self-expression going the way of dishwashing and laundry? And if so, who cares, other than sentimental English majors on the fast track to extinction like yours truly?

Maybe it’s time to give it up, this habit of acting like we personally – of the eight billion humans on earth – have something vital to impart. Maybe we’re all just talking over each other like tech bros at a testosterone party.

It’s not like I’m leading such a thrilling existence. On tap today: work, grocery store, kid’s soccer practice. Remind me what made me think anyone wants to hear about it?

This is my Nihilistic Nancy talking. She hangs around a lot in the winter. But particularly when I’ve had a good night’s sleep and my coffee, I call bull.

Actually I am. I am leading a thrilling existence. So are you.

What’s so thrilling about life in the cold, dark, invernal Northeast? The way the lettuces in my hoop house glow like purple and green gems as the morning sun finally breaks the horizon. The way my daughter was giggling in her sleep last night. The way we are all of us soldiering on through weird times, hobnobbing at the bus stop even as my neighbor predicts civil war.

This is an adventure to end all adventures, and we’re on it together.

I want to hear your take, in all its quirky, off-color glory. I want you to hear me. Because here’s the thing Nihilistic Nancy doesn’t grasp: it’s out of that exchange that our culture eventually emerges. Is that not sort of thrilling?

Words are not the only vessel of culture. Food, sport, art, music, clothes, office chatter: we’re expressing ourselves every waking moment. A peep into someone’s garden is worth a thousand words. But words are a biggie, like the announcer at a sports game, wrapping the action into context, spicing it up with color commentary, focusing the scattered attention of the crowd, bearing witness. Are we really so eager to toss the key to the announcer’s booth to the robots the moment they pull up in the parking lot?

When Nancy starts up with her sarcastic drear, there’s an essay hanging on my fridge that, as much as any work of literature, restores my faith in writing. It was composed by my third-grader in response to the teacher’s prompt to describe a family tradition. She chose our annual locavore challenge, six years strong, in which we source food grown, raised or foraged close to home each September.

“in eating local Stember my family eats food that is in range of 250 miles some of the food we grow in our gardens. My ansesters did’t do this but I still count it as a tradition because we do it every year so it prety much counts.”

That piece of paper has been on the fridge for months. Every time I go to put it in the recycle bin, I re-read it and am struck anew by the feeling that this paragraph is a foundational text of our little tribe. Seeing reality distilled through the lens of my eight-year-old makes the through-line clear. Back on the fridge it goes. It didn’t come off a mountain chiseled in stone (that would just be overkill these days), but between the lines, I can make out our family’s Commandments.

Thou shalt not take the easy route. Thou shalt appreciate the work of those who labor with their hands. Thou shalt find ways to connect in an increasingly frenetic world. Thou shalt put pencil to paper. Thou shalt do your part to create the culture. Thou shalt not let the perfect be the enemy of the good – because showing up with the right intentions, well, that pretty much counts.