Writing is not just writing. It is thinking, communicating, and storytelling. In other words, writing represents some of the most wonderful, meaningful parts of being alive. It's tragic to outsource that activity to a machine.
I detest everything remotely related to AI. I will never succumb to its cheap enticements and siren song of making me a "better writer". It's a transhumanist mechanism and anyone who is gullible enough to surrender to its vacuous clarion call has already surrendered his/her humanity to the soulless billionaires who are destroying this world.
Thank you for your essay. I remember, in late elementary school (maybe 5th or 6th grade--that would have been 1962 or 63) hearing the comment from my English teacher that ninety percent of writing involved applying the seat of the pants to a chair and the fingers to a pen. Well, now it's fingers to a keyboard mostly, but that's stood me in good stead all these years. You're right about writing (and reading, too) changing a person. It has, and it still does, at least for me. I'm glad it does for you as well. And, no, I'll never, ever, use fucking ai. I still turn off the spelling check when I write even things like a health resume or med list for one of my doctors. My typos are mine to make and own, dammit!
Ha Ha ,this funny ,because I NEVER use AI ,I avoid it at all cost its just not for me and I knew it before it came into a reality from I first heard and read about it, I told my adult kids this sounds like trouble to me, they were enthusiastic about it because they are a lot more tech Savvy than I am .
Two of my 3 boys were System Tech and Programmers the youngest died in California last year at 45 years old the second one died in June at 53 years old. Both died from Cancer.
This is a strange world, and I have always said that
So strange how quickly it's over for us all. Condolences on your two boys. I often wonder what it's all about - why is there anything at all? Or as Stephen Hawking once asked, "Why does the universe go through all the bothering of existing?"
Writing can feel like glorious release, a bubble of trapped gases suddenly freed from one's mind and heart and blasted out into connection with the cosmos.
If you hate doing something like that, there's probably something wrong with you. So just don't bother.
"Writing is thinking. Writing is the practice of sorting through the flotsam and jetsam of your own consciousness and transforming your thoughts and feelings into coherent, logical expression. Engaging in this practice makes you a more mature and cognitively lucid person than you otherwise would be."
Perfectly said! I worry a lot about young students and AI usage. If they never learn to really write, they will never really learn critical thinking skills. They will be easy to manipulate and propagandize. I truly believe it's time to put the AI chatbots and the like back into the box until we've created a world where all can freely express themselves and aren't easily fool by those who don't have our best interests in mind.
That's like adding machines which then became a little addition on your phone and computer. Shop assistants can no longer count on their own, it's mayhem if the power goes out. When these machines first came out and I was made to use them; I double checked them every time, mentally.
All these shortcuts do is dumb us down, and some want yo use them instead of exercising their brains. So dumb.
Spot on. If people turn to letting AI do the work of writing for them and, if the write stories, they'll end up all being the same story such that after the first sentence we will know how it ends.
When I write, usually just responses to an article or what someone else writes about the message, or lack of one nowadays, words often just pop into my mind while I'm writing which can make me stop and ponder; is that the best word here? And it often is more suited than my original word before I write, which says to me that my 86 year-old brain is still working that it can produce a word I may not have used in decades that fits so well to my current thoughts.
So leave these AI bots alone and they may just die the death of something that turns out to be boringly repetitive rubbish that we've heard a thousand times and has no stimulation for the human brain.
The time I spent writing I could have, and usually am, reading. Or watching Esoterica (fantastic YouTube channel), or researching old work done across a multitude of disciplines (“Asylums” by Erving Goffman is a hidden gem) with relevance to my work. Or refining my model. Writing for creativity is one thing, but my work is more scholarly than trying to be the next Tolkien or Robert Frost. Tools have their place, and that place is removing drudgery. It’s not like anyone is really reading what I publish, much less care if I personally selected every word. The ideas are my own, and I put hours into formulating and refining them. I don’t need to put additional hours writing them all out for nobody but me and like three people.
Caitlin & Tim, as I've pointed out before about some of your essays, you have this tendency to treat things in black-and-white terms instead of the nuance that many such subjects/topics deserve.
Also, you tend to extrapolate from your OWN experiences and opinions to those of everyone else that might experience the process and purpose of writing DIFFERENTLY than you do.
For you, writing serves as a process of self-discovery where you work through your thoughts, challenge assumptions, and deepen and gain more clarity on a subject. For many others (especially when writing is not their main source of income or hobby or passion), AI in writing is used to REDUCE routine, repetitive and boilerplate tasks - especially in business contexts.
Also, I think you're conflating "using AI to avoid intellectual effort" with "using AI to improve your work". Using AI to "avoid thinking for yourself" is NOT the same as "using it to improve your thinking". Asking an AI LLM to write an essay/article/creative work and accepting the result *uncritically* is VERY DIFFERENT from using an LLM to challenge arguments, expose weaknesses in reasoning, research and verify evidence needed to support or debunk arguments, or improve the writing process through feedback and incremental improvement.
And where are the examples showing that AI-assisted writing NECESSARILY makes people worse writers? You've shown some cherry-picked examples of people using AI LLMs badly to demonstrate that this can happen, not that it is an inevitable consequence of using AI. Your argument about the disappearance of our ability to write is a MUCH bigger claim that you have not provided evidence or any other kind of support for.
*** The real distinction (IMO) is between "using AI LLMs to avoid developing your abilities" and "using AI to help develop them".*** The question isn't simply whether someone uses AI to write. It's what they're using it for, what intellectual work they're still doing themselves, and whether the process helps them develop their abilities or allows those abilities to atrophy. Treating all these different scenarios as equivalent makes for an unconvincing (and rather emotional/prejudiced) argument on your part.
One can only wonder what the law has to say about this , if i write something that's hate speech I'm guilty , if I let AI idiocy write it for me , am I guilty ?
I started writing at a very young age, shortly after I learned to read. Writing is what enables us to read texts that were produced thousands of years ago. The fact that people are getting dumber all the time has to do with the devaluation of the skills of reading, writing, and cognitive thinking. These basic skills are no longer taught in schools, it seems. Look at at the ignorance of our political "leaders". Donald Trump is the perfect incarnation of people who do not read and who do not write. That is a sad reflection of society at the moment.
أحسنت النشر والقول – سلام غزة و القدس عليكم - العزة والنصر حليف محورالمقاومة وحلفاءها والذلة والعار لمحور الشر وجماعة أبستين (امريكا و بريطانيا وفرنسا وتركيا والسعودية وقطر والامارات و دول الناتو والنازية الجديدة والماسونية والصهيونية و أسرائيل) وحلفاءه
Writing is not just writing. It is thinking, communicating, and storytelling. In other words, writing represents some of the most wonderful, meaningful parts of being alive. It's tragic to outsource that activity to a machine.
I detest everything remotely related to AI. I will never succumb to its cheap enticements and siren song of making me a "better writer". It's a transhumanist mechanism and anyone who is gullible enough to surrender to its vacuous clarion call has already surrendered his/her humanity to the soulless billionaires who are destroying this world.
Thank you for your essay. I remember, in late elementary school (maybe 5th or 6th grade--that would have been 1962 or 63) hearing the comment from my English teacher that ninety percent of writing involved applying the seat of the pants to a chair and the fingers to a pen. Well, now it's fingers to a keyboard mostly, but that's stood me in good stead all these years. You're right about writing (and reading, too) changing a person. It has, and it still does, at least for me. I'm glad it does for you as well. And, no, I'll never, ever, use fucking ai. I still turn off the spelling check when I write even things like a health resume or med list for one of my doctors. My typos are mine to make and own, dammit!
Ha Ha ,this funny ,because I NEVER use AI ,I avoid it at all cost its just not for me and I knew it before it came into a reality from I first heard and read about it, I told my adult kids this sounds like trouble to me, they were enthusiastic about it because they are a lot more tech Savvy than I am .
Two of my 3 boys were System Tech and Programmers the youngest died in California last year at 45 years old the second one died in June at 53 years old. Both died from Cancer.
This is a strange world, and I have always said that
So strange how quickly it's over for us all. Condolences on your two boys. I often wonder what it's all about - why is there anything at all? Or as Stephen Hawking once asked, "Why does the universe go through all the bothering of existing?"
Writing can feel like glorious release, a bubble of trapped gases suddenly freed from one's mind and heart and blasted out into connection with the cosmos.
If you hate doing something like that, there's probably something wrong with you. So just don't bother.
"Writing is thinking. Writing is the practice of sorting through the flotsam and jetsam of your own consciousness and transforming your thoughts and feelings into coherent, logical expression. Engaging in this practice makes you a more mature and cognitively lucid person than you otherwise would be."
Perfectly said! I worry a lot about young students and AI usage. If they never learn to really write, they will never really learn critical thinking skills. They will be easy to manipulate and propagandize. I truly believe it's time to put the AI chatbots and the like back into the box until we've created a world where all can freely express themselves and aren't easily fool by those who don't have our best interests in mind.
That's like adding machines which then became a little addition on your phone and computer. Shop assistants can no longer count on their own, it's mayhem if the power goes out. When these machines first came out and I was made to use them; I double checked them every time, mentally.
All these shortcuts do is dumb us down, and some want yo use them instead of exercising their brains. So dumb.
If it can come up with some cancer cures, what are they waiting for? Oh right, it has to make the Billie boys richer.
A I will reflect and promulgate that which serves the interests of their creators.
the creators or its creators. Sorry, just a human here:)
AI will turn the masses brains to mush. That is exactly what the rulers want. I will have no part of that.
Spot on. If people turn to letting AI do the work of writing for them and, if the write stories, they'll end up all being the same story such that after the first sentence we will know how it ends.
When I write, usually just responses to an article or what someone else writes about the message, or lack of one nowadays, words often just pop into my mind while I'm writing which can make me stop and ponder; is that the best word here? And it often is more suited than my original word before I write, which says to me that my 86 year-old brain is still working that it can produce a word I may not have used in decades that fits so well to my current thoughts.
So leave these AI bots alone and they may just die the death of something that turns out to be boringly repetitive rubbish that we've heard a thousand times and has no stimulation for the human brain.
The time I spent writing I could have, and usually am, reading. Or watching Esoterica (fantastic YouTube channel), or researching old work done across a multitude of disciplines (“Asylums” by Erving Goffman is a hidden gem) with relevance to my work. Or refining my model. Writing for creativity is one thing, but my work is more scholarly than trying to be the next Tolkien or Robert Frost. Tools have their place, and that place is removing drudgery. It’s not like anyone is really reading what I publish, much less care if I personally selected every word. The ideas are my own, and I put hours into formulating and refining them. I don’t need to put additional hours writing them all out for nobody but me and like three people.
I love the emdash too -- I'm not gonna stop using it just because some robot imitated it.
Caitlin & Tim, as I've pointed out before about some of your essays, you have this tendency to treat things in black-and-white terms instead of the nuance that many such subjects/topics deserve.
Also, you tend to extrapolate from your OWN experiences and opinions to those of everyone else that might experience the process and purpose of writing DIFFERENTLY than you do.
For you, writing serves as a process of self-discovery where you work through your thoughts, challenge assumptions, and deepen and gain more clarity on a subject. For many others (especially when writing is not their main source of income or hobby or passion), AI in writing is used to REDUCE routine, repetitive and boilerplate tasks - especially in business contexts.
Also, I think you're conflating "using AI to avoid intellectual effort" with "using AI to improve your work". Using AI to "avoid thinking for yourself" is NOT the same as "using it to improve your thinking". Asking an AI LLM to write an essay/article/creative work and accepting the result *uncritically* is VERY DIFFERENT from using an LLM to challenge arguments, expose weaknesses in reasoning, research and verify evidence needed to support or debunk arguments, or improve the writing process through feedback and incremental improvement.
And where are the examples showing that AI-assisted writing NECESSARILY makes people worse writers? You've shown some cherry-picked examples of people using AI LLMs badly to demonstrate that this can happen, not that it is an inevitable consequence of using AI. Your argument about the disappearance of our ability to write is a MUCH bigger claim that you have not provided evidence or any other kind of support for.
*** The real distinction (IMO) is between "using AI LLMs to avoid developing your abilities" and "using AI to help develop them".*** The question isn't simply whether someone uses AI to write. It's what they're using it for, what intellectual work they're still doing themselves, and whether the process helps them develop their abilities or allows those abilities to atrophy. Treating all these different scenarios as equivalent makes for an unconvincing (and rather emotional/prejudiced) argument on your part.
A character flaw. Definitely!
One can only wonder what the law has to say about this , if i write something that's hate speech I'm guilty , if I let AI idiocy write it for me , am I guilty ?
I started writing at a very young age, shortly after I learned to read. Writing is what enables us to read texts that were produced thousands of years ago. The fact that people are getting dumber all the time has to do with the devaluation of the skills of reading, writing, and cognitive thinking. These basic skills are no longer taught in schools, it seems. Look at at the ignorance of our political "leaders". Donald Trump is the perfect incarnation of people who do not read and who do not write. That is a sad reflection of society at the moment.
أحسنت النشر والقول – سلام غزة و القدس عليكم - العزة والنصر حليف محورالمقاومة وحلفاءها والذلة والعار لمحور الشر وجماعة أبستين (امريكا و بريطانيا وفرنسا وتركيا والسعودية وقطر والامارات و دول الناتو والنازية الجديدة والماسونية والصهيونية و أسرائيل) وحلفاءه
Don't give up on em-dashes! (I love those little guys, too...) Those of us who regularly read your writing can certainly tell it's you...