Artificial Intelligence, Writing, and You
What can human writers do in the age of AI?
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I’m also a software engineer. For the past six months, I’ve been immersing myself in the capabilities and limitations of generative AI as a tool to replace human effort.
I’ve been thinking about the impact of AI on literary/genre writing, and I thought of a parallel between writing and racing. I’m a fan of F1 and use it as a metaphor here. If you’re not familiar with F1, you should be able to follow along.
The reason why I’m making this parallel is because of my perspective. I’m an author and I’m also a software engineer (with 20+ years of experience) who is currently building an “expert system” based on ChatGPT for a client. For the past six months, I’ve been immersing myself in the capabilities and limitations of generative AI as a tool to replace human effort.
From what I’ve seen, there are technical limitations that prevent tools like ChatGPT from creating a story without intense input and guidance from a human. Yes, eventually, many of these technical limitations may diminish. But even if all the technical hurdles went away tomorrow, and every reader was able to click a button and create their very own novel from ChatGPT, one barrier to the success of fully AI-generated literature still remains:
Humans and our persistent need for connection.
Hear me out on this:
In writing, writers want (on the surface) to complete a story. Writers have at their disposal a support team (of editors, beta readers), the genre and tropes they use, and the writing tool itself (pen, paper, word processor, spell checker, etc.). As we know, each writer has a personal style and wants to complete that story in the best expression of their way of writing
In F1, drivers (on the surface) want to win. They want to go around the track, overcome problems, and cross the finish line. The drivers have at their disposal a support team, the car itself, and the track. However, there is an art to driving a car on a complex course at over 200 miles per hour and so different ways of achieving the end goal of crossing the line. Each driver wants to finish a race in the best expression of their way of racing.
Readers want to see a “good novel” or poem/essay/whatever. As readers, we’re well-versed in genre forms and story tropes, so we basically can predict that a story will be a tragedy, a comedy, or some other form. What we can’t predict is how the author will actually plot the story or form the poem, and how the author will end it.
F1 fans want to see a “good race” in the sense that the drivers go around the track, overcome problems, and even though the fans know the outcome (in the sense that someone will win) they can’t predict the precise outcome or how it will occur. Each racing fan and team owner will also tell you that every driver has a personal style. The race itself is the “art form” of F1.
In summary, here are the parallels I see:
My point for this essay is that readers can read stories written by AI, and the stories might be interesting as an intellectual exercise, but it’s not the same as reading a book written by a person. Readers want stories written by people because they feel a personal connection to the authors.
In the same way, F1 fans may attend a race that’s entirely performed by self-driving robot cars, but what they’re really there for is to see their drivers. The F1 fans feel personal connections with the drivers.
As an example, I enjoy Leonardo Padua’s detective novels (the Mario Conde series) because I discovered that we share an affinity for Cuban culture, for the use of the mystery genre to examine cultural issues, critiquing Hemingway, and so on. When I read a Padua novel, I read it on two levels: for the story and for what he’s thinking about. I understand that Padua doesn’t know that I exist, of course, but my point being there’s a human connection there. I liked his novels and I looked him up online and the more I read about him, the more I became interested in his art.
Writers have to do the one thing that AI cannot do.
I see this same idea played out by other people and art forms. They become fans of Taylor Swift or James Baldwin because Swift and Baldwin “get” them. The artist understands and expresses aspects of the listener’s or reader’s personal lives that they can’t express on their own. And then they look up Swift or Baldwin and learn about the artist’s own lives and struggles and form a deeper connection.
I think there will be a percentage of people that will be interested fully AI-generated writing and art. And that’s OK. It can be another art form, just like digital photography or charcoal sketching. It might even be another genre, like abstract expressionism.
I predict that, like all other art forms, people will follow particular artists who use AI because they will investigate the artist’s life and look for that personal connection. They will seek out that person behind that AI who is creating the prompts and shaping the story (to date, works created by AI are heavily designed and edited by humans) and that means there is a motivation for creating that story and, in the end, there is a personal connection waiting. In the absence of drivers, fans form a personal connection with the design & engineering team, in much the same way that fans of Robot Wars picked teams because of their status as an underdog, for example.
In the long run, I think that AI will become another tool for writers. We’ve adopted grammar checkers. AI can help us in many ways, by generating story prompts or being used in ways we can’t imagine yet. Maybe AI will finally free us from writing the damned novel synopsis.
I think the majority of readers will continue seek out literature written by humans because readers feel personal connections with human authors… as long as writers keep writing, keep pushing the limits of what they can do, keep experimenting, and keep doing the one thing that AI cannot: be human and write about the human experience.
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It's the same with music. I read their biographies and diaries to get even more connected. Great stuff here, pal. Keep it up. Thank you for your support as well. Best wishes.