There are questions every person I meet asks, and I’m getting sick of answering. Worse, the newest of these questions has been severely harming my motivation to write for several years.
I didn’t want to talk about this, but I’m beginning to think I need to. Hopefully, if I get this off my chest, I’ll be able to move on to writing about things I love.
the dreaded question
Every time I tell someone new that I’m a writer, they pause for a moment, then ask the same question: “So, what do you think about AI?”
Seriously, almost every person asks this eventually.
My boilerplate answer is that “I have serious technical, professional, and ethical concerns with the development and use of AI.”
People rarely let me leave it there.
having the conversation
Usually, I’ve actually made the effort and had the conversation. I explain that so-called “Artificial Intelligence” isn’t anywhere near the quality of writing serious authors reach. I explain that when people want to read a book, they’re really wanting to read the creation of another real person, and that you can’t relate to a machine.
I explain the systemic harm the technology has already caused to my craft and what damage it’s still likely to do, with no actual benefit.
But I’m really, really tired of having the conversation. Because it’s the same conversation over and over and over again, usually with no actual signs that the person I’m talking to cares enough to change their mind.
Often, they pivot the conversation to how they use AI. As far as I can tell, all these people really want is for me to validate them, so that they can tell people, “Yeah, even this writer I know who is critical of AI thinks my use-case is okay.”
I mean, I’m not gonna tell them to their face that any claimed “use case” at all perpetuates a belief that things will get better later with AI, and that this belief itself is most of what’s causing all the problems today. I’m not going to tell someone I just met to their face that their harmless pastime is validating the creation of technology that devalues human labor and creativity for the enrichment of the 1% who are salivating at the thought of laying off all their workers to get yet another billion dollars they’ll never live long enough to spend.
I’m too polite to say that to their faces. Maybe that’s my problem.
Some people mean well when asking. Some people are genuinely curious to hear my view.
Just asking the question, though, is the problem, for me.
the harm of the question
When your first thought at hearing about the craft I practice is of a technology that is fundamentally incapable of making a difference to that craft and is created with the goal of devaluing my effort and hard work, that tells me that you don’t value me.
When you ask me what I think about AI as if that has any actual relevance to the work I do, that tells me you don’t actually care about my work.
If I tell someone I published a book after meeting them in person, I expect they would want to read it. That’s my own reaction when someone tells me about what they’ve written. If I told someone instead that I asked ChatGPT to write a book so I could put my name on it, would they actually care? Would they ask how to get a copy?
Of course not. Because people want to read things that other people have written. AI is completely irrelevant to that; it isn’t a person, as much as the companies making it would like you to pretend it is.
No one cares that ChatGPT can write a novel. No one cares if the novels it writes are enjoyable to read, because that’s not why we read.
But when you ask me that awful, misguided question as if you’re equating my writing with that trash, it makes me wonder if my writing actually matters. I begin to lose motivation to write. I begin wondering how truthful it is anymore to call myself a writer when I dread putting pen to paper.
That’s where I’ve been stuck for three years now. Some of you may have read a story or two from me, such as ”Those Who Breathe Easy” which was published last August or the series of mythology stories a few kind people have been beta reading for me, but I really haven’t been able to get much written. Every word is a struggle with my own self-doubt, fighting the worry that even if I do the work no one will care.
And every time I talk myself out of that pit, a new person asks me, “So, what do you think about AI?”
Please, I implore you, stop asking writers about AI.
my actual visions of the future of art
Let’s take a break from that depressing talk. Let’s talk about what I actually expect of the future. Let’s have that conversation for a minute. Now that you know what it costs me to take the thought of AI seriously even for a moment, hopefully you can actually listen and maybe accept some new ideas. Maybe you also hate AI already; this vision of the future can be a bit of hope for you.
AI can’t replace human art, and it never will—but, eventually, our bosses might think it can. They might fire writers, artists, and musicians.
I tell this to people whenever I’m brave enough to actually have this conversation: when you fire an artist, they don’t just disappear. They’re still real people who exist in the real world, and they’re still artists.
Do you seriously think writers will actually stop writing if big companies stop hiring them? When, in all of human history, has contempt from systems in power ever stopped brave people from speaking up and writing change into being?
If you fire us, we’ll still be here. We’ll still be writing. We’ll still be publishing that writing, outside of the commercial systems that we’ve been constrained by until now.
And, when people are given the choice between a mass market ChatGPT-written romance novel published by a major publishing house or a book that a real human being poured their heart into and then sent out into the world, which are they going to read?
When you’re given the option to watch a large-budget Hollywood film ridden with clichés or an independent film put together after hours by a handful of young adults for the joy of the craft and because they want others to see what they’d made, which is more compelling?
Not just that, some of these independent projects will be made by the former greats of the commercial publishers, who’ve been spurned in favor of a small extra lining in billionaires’ pockets.
The moment the media conglomerates fire their real human artists is the moment they forget what actually made them big and set free their most valuable assets.
Telling me not to speak my mind
is like telling a star
not to shine
Giving me a pen and telling me not to write
is like giving a bird wings
and telling it
not to fly
Telling me to keep my dreams a secret
is like telling a chick
not to hatch
from its shell
My art is meant to be
on display
Asking me hide it
is like asking the sun
to hide in the skyAI “replacing” authors would not be our downfall, it would be the beginning of a new triumph.
conclusion: those left behind
Yes, I believe that AI poses no serious threat to the craft of writing in the long term. Yes, I think writers as a whole could even be in a stronger position if companies make the mistake of trying to replace us.
That doesn’t mean I want it to happen. Some of us would be hurt. Some of us have been hurt already.
Because when you tell us by asking that dreaded question that our dreams are worthless, some of us are going to take that to heart.
Some of us are going to stop trying to write.
If you’re a writer, I beg you: never stop writing. I will say as many times as I have to that I would far prefer reading anything you write, no matter how terrible you think it is, than anything an “AI” spat out.
It’s true, some people won’t value you. I’m gonna be honest: they probably wouldn’t have even if AI didn’t exist. Don’t write for them. Write for you, and write for the people who will listen because I promise they’re out there.
When National Novel Writing Month revealed to writers how little they actually cared about us with their terrible statement on Artificial Intelligence (calling condemnation of it “classist and ableist”), my biggest fear was that the people hurt would simply stop writing. That’s the real reason I started Writing Month: to create a new space for writers so that they keep writing, no matter what.
Keep writing. As I’ve written in another poem:
While the world tries to fall, Write a pillar, keep it up; Write the Moon in the sky to Pull the tides to the shore.
I would love to hear from you, to talk about the craft we love. To hear if you agree, if you’ve also been harmed by the dreaded question. To hear if this little piece I wrote helped at all. My email address is below, and it will make my day to hear from you.
To everyone else I ask a final time: stop asking writers about AI. You might not mean any harm. But at least for me, and I suspect for others, your innocent question sounds like it’s coming from the same direction as the ceaseless barrage of devaluation we’ve been fighting.
Instead, perhaps try a different question: “Can I read your work?” Show us how much you really do care about the craft we love.
