Attitudes towards writing

Large language models like ChatGPT offer us new ways of creating written works. I think they're pretty neat and shouldn't result in a maniacal AI crashing the internet for at least another five years or so. Considering a future where these models produce or aid the production of all written content consumed by humanity for the rest of our existence (at least another 10 years), it makes me reflect on why we write things in the first place.

Money. Fame. Likes.

The majority of our written work is shared on the internet. For those unfamiliar, the internet is an advert-fueled arena of intriguing garbage, where success is defined by audience retention. If you can get enough users to watch your square dance TikTok video, YouTube crochet tutorial, or Instagram novelty hat cosplay you will be rewarded with fame, hearts and a token effort at financial compensation (although note this particular content strategy hasn't worked out for me yet). Our motivation for succeeding online, whether as side hustle or career, is amplified more broadly through one of society's direct messages to our minds; do more, be more, be better.

I quote: "Do more, be more, be better." - Society

I don't know who this society guy is personally, but they are aided and abetted by aspirational adverts and it'd be great if they'd leave off a bit with all these expectations of success. But let's say as a writer, if you actually tried to follow the algorithm's path to internet fame, wouldn't it make a lot of sense to use these fancy new AI language models? To succeed online, you need to make consistent, high quality content that appeals to your target audience - you don't necessarily have much time or energy, so why not ask a large language model to do the heavy lifting?

And at a certain point, it might not feel like writing any more. You're producing "content", the arbitrary matter of the algorithm. As Amelia Wattenberger reflected:

https://wattenberger.com/thoughts/boo-chatbots

I've added emphasis to the last line as I think this is particularly sad. Perhaps the best part of writing is where you can express what you want to say, whether in prose, poetry or the emotional turmoil of a questionable fan-fic pairing. There's also an annoying part of writing where you put in the work to turn your initial grunts into writing safe for human consumption; unfortunately editing requires actual thought and consideration, but I'd recommend not outsourcing this to AI too quickly. When editing yourself, you retain authorship of the resulting work with less outside influence, so it remains closer to your unique expression while dodging the mysterious, obfuscated algorithmic bias that seeps benignly from our AI black boxes.

Instead of predictive text and ChatGPT, I think the best way of writing is directly - moving a pen on paper, typing or dictating words, then selecting and removing some of the more questionable jokes (N.B. I might not have mastered this bit yet). And when writing is at its best, I believe that the words produced could be a communication from our hearts, minds, and maybe even our soul.

Writing is a practice, a human process, whether from the soul or the last remaining braincells partying in a room overcrowded by Vine references. It's a personal journey of meaning, recognition and refinement explored word after word, edit after edit, steadily evolving towards clear expression of what we really want to say; what matters to us, what we want to share with others.

Until the AI can hold the entirety of a lived experience in its training, then re-write, reconsider and cut the material based on what it deems relevant to share, and allow ideas to simmer gently for weeks as its subconscious finds space to draw new connections (while occasionally stumbling across useful new material), it's just not quite as good as a human.

Fundamentally, I don't think an AI is as interesting as a human. We can get a hit of novelty and entertainment from our AI prompts, but a human is a real person with skin in the game. A real life, temporary, filled with all sorts of events and emotions - another living being, like you, making the most of their circumstances. And in that lens imperfections are all the more interesting as they lend towards a voice, a personality of the author, which may be consistent or evolve over time.

As Seneca wrote in his widely published letters, it's worth writing something even if only a friend will end up reading it. Now I'd like you to consider a different success story; writing for the smaller internet, creating directly for your friends, for the joy of creating. Not the algorithm, nor the money, for other, living people.

Writing is about connection; the author, the reader, the ideas that are exchanged between them. This connection can be enlightening, challenging and positive. Taking a moment to decide what is meaningful to share, to personally edit it and put some effort into it as a gift for your reader - I think it's a worthwhile process, and we don't need large language models getting in the way.