“Convincing” doesn’t mean “real”
OK, I’m going to say it. Plugging some prompts into ChatGPT and calling yourself a writer is like putting a frozen TV dinner into the microwave, pushing some buttons, and calling yourself a chef.
Generative AI is a compiler of information, albeit a creative and brilliant one.
It is the most accomplished plagiarist of all time. It can do a decent job of synthesising all the things ever written about standing on a beach and watching the sun set. But it will never know what the sand feels like between its toes. Or feel goosebumps on its arms as the night chill settles in the air and the breeze tickles at the waves. Much less know the sensation of supernatural awe we feel in the face of natural beauty.
AI is senseless, in the true meaning of the word.
It does not see. It does not hear. It does not smell. It does not taste. And no matter how convincingly it communicates with you, it does not feel. It is, remember, “Artificial Intelligence.” Not “Artificial Emotions” or “Artificial Sensations.” When AI describes something, it’s cobbling together things written by human beings.
The Turing test wasn’t a measure of real intelligence. It was about crossing a point where technology could convince a human being that it was human. But being “convincing” doesn’t make something “real”. Just ask any half-decent fairground magician.
As far as I can see, generative AI is kitted up in a very convincing cow-suit and is doing a pretty damned good job of mooing. But if you’re using that cow to get your milk, you’re going to be tugging at those teats for a very long time. And if anything comes out, it sure as fuck won’t taste too good on your breakfast cereal.
Originality? Yeah, right.
A very clever friend of mine, Stefano Boscutti said to me that AI can only exist in the past. Relying on it too much is like trying to drive down a freeway while only looking in the rear-view mirror. I like that metaphor.
Yes, yes, I know. We’re all building on things that we’ve heard, or read, or seen, before. But we hear, or read, or see those things through the lens of our own, lived, very real, human experience.
The ways we interpret those experiences are, by definition, original. Because we can relate to those things; we are moved; we feel empathy; we feel anger, or horror. We’re speaking the same language. We’re not just reading some lines of code at pace and cleverly splicing them together.
Is it all ‘original,’ as in sprung from nothing? Of course not.
I don’t think anything anyone makes ever is. But what is original is the perspective I bring to it. Because only I can ever see and feel things as I do. Just as you can only ever see and feel the things you do. We could be standing side by side and see exactly the same thing. But when we described it later, we would both use different words. Our experiences, and the we remember them, are unique.
Peanut-butter platform heels
And don’t get me going on the hallucinations. When I was a university lecturer, I started every semester with a lesson about how to research properly. Rule number one was that as useful as Wikipedia might be as a jumping-off point, it’s so riddled with inaccuracies that you rely on it as a resource at your own peril.
AI is next-level wrongtown.
Case in point. A thing I did over on Threads went a little viral after I posted the results of a nonsensical search I did on Google for “peanut butter platform heels” to test what its AI would make of it. The story made it onto news sites around the world.
Now, any human being with a more than a couple of neurones to rub together would recognise it as something that made about as much sense as most of the lyrics on the Sgt Pepper’s album. But Google’s obliging AI couldn’t bear to leave me without an answer. So, it cobbled together an impressively plausible explanation about a scientific experiment in which peanut butter was used to demonstrate the creation of diamonds under high pressure, with that pressure likened to “stiletto heels.”
New technology has always been liberating
The arrival of a new technology has always been liberating for creative types. Photography didn’t mean the end of visual artists. It liberated them from the expectation that they should replicate life in two-dimensional form.
No photography? No Picasso.
And how about the arrival of the “word processor”? I’ve done some of my best work on my lap beside sports grounds during my kids’ training sessions, and in cafes or the back seat of the family car as I wait for them to finish at a birthday party. Don’t see me doing that with the old Underwood on the knees.
Artists have always leapt on new technology to make their art. I’ll never forget when British artist David Hockney jumped on board the iPad craze and started tapping and swiping out his own electronic artworks.
Collaboration has also always been a thing in the creative industries.
Composers write music that’s played by an orchestra with many musicians. Choreographers work with other dancers. Writers get editors to help refine their work. And once they lift themselves out of poverty and can afford it, visual artists have always used apprentices and expert technicians to bring their work to life.
Sculptor Henry Moore had virtually nothing to do with the production of many of his large sculptures. He’d create models for his apprentices to build to scale. Rodin employed an expert foundry to cast his bronzes. And Bernini would create sketches for his clients, then employ other sculptors to do the majority of the work carving the stone. His student, Giuliano Finelli, created the most revered parts of Apollo and Daphne, because he was an expert in carving hair and foliage. Bernini then took on the task of finishing the faces and hands.
As for Damien Hirst, he has said the best ‘dot’ painting by him, is one painted by his assistant, Rachel Howard.
Automated assistant
So perhaps there’s a role for generative AI as an assistant. I don’t know. Maybe if you’re stuck on a plot point, it can help you unravel the narrative. Or if a character’s spinning its wheels, maybe it can help you find a way to get them moving again.
But an architect wouldn’t call herself a carpenter because she drew the plans that the carpenter used to make the cabinetry in a house.
Tapping a few prompts onto the screen, printing what’s spat out onto some pages and whacking them between a cover does not make you a writer. It makes you something. Perhaps we need to come up with a new word for it.
Writing is about the journey, not the destination
Speaking for myself, I don’t use AI for anything when I’m writing because even when there’s a logjam in my mind, working through that mess is part of the process. And what pops out the other end, for better or worse, is part of the convoluted, sometimes frustrating, but ultimately deeply satisfying job of being a writer in the true sense of the word.
Because the thing is, the act of writing is the art, not the product.
Sometimes I’ll miss the train, swear a bit and maybe throw a few things. But after I wait for a while by the side of the road for the bus that will carry me along a different route to the same destination, I know I’m going places I never would have anticipated.
Those places burst from my own imagination. I’ve no fucking idea where three-quarters of them come from.
They’re odd amalgamations of Christ knows what: something my grandfather once said to me; the smell of the carpet in the pub my aunt and uncle owned; the feeling of grief as a fish wriggled between my fingers while I tugged a hook from its mouth; a taste; a sound; a sensation. Maybe it’s a thought planted deep in my subconscious sparked by something I read or saw on a screen.
Stay true to your voice
But what we’re talking about here is something completely different.
And soon enough, there will be so much AI-generated shit floating around out there that it will be thick enough to walk on.
That’s what I’m waiting for. Because that’s when human beings will be given their voice back. And the messy, sweary, chaotic, confusing, exquisite, sublime and transcendent animal roar of real life will echo above the stagnant, milquetoast, SEO-optimised, soulless, senseless nonsense that we’re currently drowning in.
So, all of you writers out there, please stay true to your voice.
Hold the line.
Be strong.
And keep it real.
You are the truthtellers; the ones who are capturing this moment for those who are yet to be.
And I do believe we’ll win in the end.
Dude, yes, couldn't agree more. I wrote on a similar topic this week, actually: https://open.substack.com/pub/fireyouragency/p/you-were-lied-to-ai-wont-take-your?r=5onhz0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
I agree with most of your points, but I do get a little tired of the smug tone writers use when discussing the evils of AI. Your article does minimize the smug, so that’s a plus. I say if you don’t like AI don’t use it—end of story. To be fair, your article is well written and researched, and I’m not hating or critiquing you personally. I think AI can be useful and it’s a personal choice as to how much one uses it. Of course I draw the line at calling AI generated writing your own work. When I first discovered it I used it quite a bit to “polish” my writing, but soon realized it muddled my voice, so I stopped. I think ppl should feel free to experiment and decide on their own without feeling shamed (I’m not saying you are shaming them) or outcasted. Just wanted to put it out there and thank you for the well written article.