I awoke this morning of news on the radio that a novel written by AI called Death of an Author and I thought, “how is it even possible that I’m now living in a world that is stripping away every possibility of being able to think and create for myself?”

It irritated me because at this moment, I’ve been thinking about writing and undertaking a course with the Australian Writers Centre.

I have a couple of stories outlined on paper, characters, plot lines and their obstacles but I have no idea how to pull it together and create the actual story with all the chapters. (I figured a course where an author who has done this before can give me a few pointers. The rest is up to me).

The book written by AI downright annoyed me because it’s yet ANOTHER thing that I feel is being stripped away from us – the simple act of writing (and by that I mean, THINKING) by machines and of course, it means that their use now and over time will be NORMALISED.

Just look at what happened with social media. It seems that everyone in the world has an Instagram, TikTok or X account.

Over time, the use of these AI technologies become normalised into our life and work to the point that they do it all for us. Of course, people would argue that they make our life easier for us to then focus on more complex problems.

However I don’t understand this logic.

If you’re asking a machine to come up with ideas for how to write your book (and then write it), how to write that email to your manager, how to structure your lesson plan, etc, how on earth will you exercise and keep your mind active, nimble and creative for coming up with solutions to those complex problems you’re talking about?

You won’t.

As humans when we come up against a perceived obstacle, anything that is out of our comfort zone, we will find the easiest and less painful way of dealing with it. That means using these AI tools to basically do as much – or all – of the task for us and then creating some cockamamie excuse why it’s beneficial or advantageous for us to use AI.

Call it out for what it is. “You were too lazy to think for yourself”. (Instead, you’ll say that it saves time. Again, what time? If you’re using AI for all your work, then really you should have time. A nonsensical argument once again).

So where does that leave us?!

It feels like you’re either “with it” or “against it”.

For now, I’m strongly in the latter camp but I know there’s going to be a time when im forced to change simply because I’ll be going against the crowd.

I’ll be forced to use it.

If you’re not using AI, social media, Ubers, Amazon or using other platforms that have ingrained and embedded themselves into our lives now because of your principles, you become an “outcast” or a pariah or seen as a Luddite or worse, people feel sorry for you because they mistake you for being a technophobe.

That’s not it at all.

I just don’t believe humanity on the whole has questioned enough what these tools are doing; or put some rules and regulations in how they are to be used that protect people and their livelihoods.

Im afraid that the only excuse for using these tools will become, over time, not that they help us think better (they don’t), not that they help us save time (they won’t), not that they will help us trust data and make better decisions (they won’t) but that because every person is using them and in order to participate, or compete, we have to be part of that or we become “excluded” (and by default, forced to change or accept how these technologies are changing our lives and society).

It’s this feeling of exclusion – going against the crowd – that I’m feeling at odds with now. I’m still at that initial “anger” stage. At times I have the “despondency – oh what’s the use of even doing anything anymore – stage too.

I’m not going to use this situation as an excuse to not continue on with my life, to write, create and make things that give me pleasure or cower in some corner fearing the machines have taken over the world or some such.

It just means that I have to choose wisely what I intend to use or do with the things I create and to be ok with not showing them publicly – of getting feedback, of creating followings. Of “being seen” or validated in some way by some machine/data/likes/numbers/followings.

Maybe it’s time to start creating things – learning things – doing things – and NOT sharing them because that’s what it means to be living…. and you don’t need AI for that.

I want to FEEL when I create. I want to be MOVED by a work that was created by a human who went through an experience when they created this work.

Don’t deny me this crucial basic feeling too otherwise I too, may as well be a robot.

See what Casey Niestat says about it when he used AI to create his video…

It is then I saw the business of writing for what it truly was and is to me. It is your penance for not being lucky. It is an attempt to reach others and to make them love you. It is your instinctive protest, when you have no voice at the world’s tribunals and that no one will speak for you. I would give my entire output of words, past, present and to come, in exchange for easier access to the world, for permission to state, “I hurt” or “I hate” or “I want”. Or indeed, “look at me”. And I do not want to go back on this. For once a thing is known and it can never be unknown. It can only be forgotten. And writing is the enemy of forgetfulness, of thoughtlessness. For the writer there is no oblivion. Only endless memory.” (Anita Brookner, Look At Me)

Amazon removes books ‘generated by AI’ for sale under author’s name | Books | The Guardian

Jane Friedman claims she had to fight against Amazon’s refusal to remove the misattributed titles because she had not trademarked her name
— Read on amp.theguardian.com/books/2023/aug/09/amazon-removes-books-generated-by-ai-for-sale-under-authors-name