How AI is Changing Your Creative Life
(And How to Resist)
Yesterday, a fellow author asked me to share my favorite writers on the subject of Melancholy, so of course I passed on my favorite C.S. Lewis passage, the one I spotlighted in BITTERSWEET:
“The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited [emphasis added].”
My colleague loved it as much as I do, and I was especially happy when he exclaimed over its breathtaking final sentence.
And then I realized that we’re not supposed to write sentences like that anymore - because writing in rhythms of three, as Lewis does in that sentence, is now considered to sound too much like AI.
Except, of course, that AI was trained on our best writers — like Lewis. So of course it echoes those writers’ rhythms.
So where does that leave us writers now? Should we abjure such rhythms, for fear of sounding like a machine?
Just to ask this question is painful, given that Lewis wrote not like a machine but like an angel.
This question is obviously not just for writers, but for anyone who cares about art, excellence, and expression. It’s also a question for students, who have to worry about the appearance that their papers were written by AI.
And I think the answer is equally obvious:
We shouldn’t cede an inch of ground to these new norms.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t use AI to help us research, ideate, and so on. I do.
But we shouldn’t give up our favorite forms of expression to it. If we love em-dashes (another supposed sign of AI writing), we should keep using them. And if we like the rhythm of threes, we should use it still. (If you’re a student, add a P.S. letting your teacher know that you really like em-dashes and want to keep using them.)
This is partly a matter of principle. But it’s also because we don’t have anything to worry about, at least not yet. The real reason to read, write, and engage in any form of self-expression and communication, is for one human consciousness to truly explain itself — bare itself — to another.
No one but C.S. Lewis could have written those words — because they came from his particular consciousness, his particular life experiences, his particular spiritual longing.
And yes, I just used an em-dash, and a rhythm of three, in that final sentence.
*
*I’d love to know how AI is affecting your creative life, your work life, and beyond.
*I’m also curious whether you’ve had the experience of starting to read a very moving, goosebump-inducing story on social media, only to realize that it was likely written by an AI. In those cases, do you keep reading, or do you lose interest?
*And anything else you’d like to share!
You’re also invited to share this post with anyone you’d like!
AI seems to be creeping up everywhere. A protest song sounds good, but then I learn it's all AI. In other words, theft of the creative process from artists long gone or ones who are still with us. As a writer, I see its temptations. On grammarly, how quickly one can slip from having the program point out grammar errors, to asking it to provide a better title than the one you've written, to recommending a better closing paragraph. And then, what left is original? How to resist? By not becoming lazy. By fine tuning my craft based on my own research, experiences, and commitment to a better phrase, a more meaningful story all on my own. In this country, it feels like we've lost our moral core in so many ways. Those of us who are quiet, empathetic, human - well, we can resist by not joining in. We are good at that.
CS Lewis is an excellent human metaphor to explore the deep essence of human thought and endeavor. I have read him often, and my favorite is “ A Grief Observed “ concerning his intense struggles in the aftermath of his wife’s death. Anyone who has lost a companion, friend or other significant relationship can readily identify with the intense sorrow he experiences. In the end, a spiritual awakening and philosophical approach allowed him and us to cope with and comprehend what has happened. That raw human emotion cannot quite be encapsulated by the words of artificial intelligence.