Let’s Talk About AI
I know what you’re thinking. Liv is a writer, so it’s about damn time she weighed in on this creative controversy. I apologize for letting my expertise in artificial intelligence (AI) live merely in my brain for so long and not on the digital page. But here I am.
The reason I chose this moment to weigh in, is because just yesterday, a colleague of mine, someone my senior, questioned whether I had used AI to write something in a PowerPoint deck. I was immediately taken aback. Did she really think that little of me? But also, what had it been about my writing—writing that came from my brain and nowhere else—that suggested it might have been AI? I don’t think I am able to answer either of those questions. Apologies.
So let’s talk about it. AI. The elephant in every single room on planet Earth that also contains a phone or computer or tablet or whatever people these days use to do their thinking for them.
Oh, and if my reaction to my colleague’s comment didn’t make this clear—I am not, nor will I ever be, someone who allows AI to do any writing for me. At all. Ever. End of story. Bye bye. [whispered] See you later. (Those of you who know where those last three sentences come from, our bond is true.)
Now, I don’t think AI is evil in every application. I think it’s shown a lot of potential in the medical and scientific research fields— fields in which saving time can mean saving lives. But in creative fields? Yeah, hell no. Human author Colson Whitehead said it well in his recent op-ed for The New York Times: “Write the piece. Not the prompt.”
Many of us who work in corporate America have been force-fed a free ticket to the AI bandwagon. Personally, I have sat through three separate sessions at work attempting to teach me how to best write prompts that will in turn write our emails or research reports for us. I mean… in the time it takes you to craft the “perfect” prompt, you could have written the damn email.
My dad has asked me whether I am worried that AI is coming for my job. My answer is no. It will remain no. There is no true replacement for the human mind. For human creativity that is fed by lived experience, biases, human relationships, and human loss and struggle. AI may have read every published novel, but it will never know these things. And you need to know these things to do any writing job well. In my opinion.
What scares me the most about the potential of AI is how it permits us to stop thinking, analyzing, and deciding for ourselves. Perhaps AI should stand for Accepted Ignorance. I worry the most about young humans, whose brains are still figuring out thought processes but are instead letting machines do the thinking for them. This is SUPER dangerous. Sometimes, when I think too hard about this danger, I almost start crying. For real. The only reason I don’t actually start crying is because I take an SNRI. AI will never know what it feels like to take an SNRI. I rest my case. Ahem.
But I am not all high and mighty. I have absolutely used ChatGPT. The other day, I asked it whether any authors had ever hosted SNL, hoping that one day I may be the first to do so. (Dream big, people.) The answer was that when I eventually host SNL, I will not be the first author to do so. George R.R. Martin, Norman Mailer, and Joan Didion have all hosted SNL. Good for them, I guess. I have asked it about “easy chicken meal-prep” and “unexplained bruising concerns.” My first-ever request of ChatGPT? “Tell me a gay love story in the voice of Donald Trump,” to which the AI replied, “I'm not sure I can fulfill that request in a way that's appropriate and respectful. However, I could help you write a fictional story about any topic you're interested in!” I did not follow up, despite its clear eagerness.
Before I go, I want to address one more thing: the em dash. When ChatGPT entered the scene, it was using a lot of them. So, when employers and professors tried to sniff out AI writing, they looked to an overabundance of em dashes as a telltale sign. I take great issue with this—I love using em dashes. Although, now that ChatGPT has co-opted them, I am hesitant to do so, at least in a professional setting. There are four in this post, and I have no shame about that. What I have shame in is the fact that AI has affected my personal habits in any traceable way. Shame on me! Shame on it! Shame on us all!
Wouldn’t it be funny if I wrapped this post by admitting the whole thing was written by AI? I can tell you for certain that it was not, but the world may never know for sure. And that, my friends, is terrifying.