Notes on Writing, Creatives, Language, and AI

Today I decided to jot down some thoughts I had about writing, creatives, and AI. Read what I wrote, then check out today’s writing prompt at the bottom of the post.

I have been thinking about the impacts of AI on writing and creatives who use it (or shun it) for quite a while, along with many others. And after all this thinking I've been doing, I still believe the only threats AI truly poses are the ones we allow it to loom over us. Humans did create it after all. So, managing its aptitude and potential creative destruction is up to us. No? Maybe I'll end up being wrong about that. But I really hope not! Because I want the ultimate impacts of AI to be up to us. Don’t you?

If we rely on AI to produce content, our quality and styles of writing will change over time and will likely start to sound more robotic, not less robotic, when also considering our own evolving perceptions and language learning overtime. 

It may even become easier and easier to determine what is written via AI and what is not, as each individual human's voice is distinct and has personal nuances and dialects and fluctuations (etc.) that I believe AI will never be able to replicate or mimic, not completely anyway… at least, not in a way that we humans will be able to or want to empathize and connect with overall. 

And that longing for connection is what drives most of us to create and write and read in the first place, which I believe can only be done by us humans as we evolve and adapt and change ourselves both individually and collectively, which includes how we use and create language and art, and how we bestow and glean meaning onto them and from them. 

In a nutshell, we will still allocate meaning to AI-produced content as we continue to change too, not the other way around, as humans and human language are NEVER static and finite, or always passive. Language is a living breathing thing and is always changing because we're always creating it and refreshing it. So even as AI adapts and learns, so will we and so will the language and art we're creating. Again, if that's how we want it to be. Although the biggest part of me would guess that humans would stop existing altogether the moment they stop creating, especially the moment they stop creating language and art.

Also, if we don't better manage copyrights and what's uploaded to AI, then it will be harder and harder to verify original works. But we can do better with this if we insist on it. We need to continue to insist we have rights to our own personal data, which includes the content and art we create online regardless of where it is. And we need to continue to deliberate what can and cannot be owned by a person regarding creative works and written works. I think we have better intuitive judgment when it comes to this than many want to acknowledge— now we just need to codify and streamline those judgments while allowing for common sense adjustments to them in the future at the same time. The only caveat to that is that we must do it before the powers that be, as well as the growing number of AI users, give AI too much power, penetrability, and permanence. 

I have a lot to say about this topic and will likely add to this draft or write new ones about it in the future. 

What about you? What are your thoughts on writing, creatives, language, and AI? Leave a comment to join this dialogue so we can discuss. 

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Today’s Writing Prompt