Nonfiction
San’s Long-Winded Personal Statement on AI.
I don’t use AI in my writing.
I don’t like reading it either.
I don’t need its help in idea generation.
It can’t help me say something any better than I can say it.
It can’t help me learn or become more.
Why?
For all the reasons you already know.
There are no good short-cuts in writing. Readers want the fruit of the writer’s struggles. That’s why they are here.
Do they want perfect? Nope. They want us.
Well, if they do want perfect they’ve come to the wrong shop.
AI can’t offer perfect anyway. All it is, is an amalgamation of what we’ve already done. There’s great stuff in there, but it can’t offer you Moby Dick, The Gettysburg Address, Silent Spring or any such thing; only something lesser and through too wide of a lens for it to be recognizably yours, no matter how you refine your instructions to it.
AI is a shield for writers. Shields are bad. Fewer shields are better.
I’ve already got plenty of shields: I won’t write about reality, I won’t tell you my real name, I avoid contentious topics, I seem unwilling to sharpen extraneous themes from my prose.
But all of that is me. I’m hiding but I’m hiding honestly. You get to see my outlines under the bed sheet. If I need defense I can at least do it myself, not hire a goon like AI to do it for me.
What about idea generation?
Are you freak’n kidding me? The initial idea is the precious glowing star. And like stars there are bazillions of them, but this one is mine.
The pressure of reality pounding on my door and rattling my shutters created it. No idea-barfing-robot gave it to me, whole hog, complete, and said here, try this. Whats the fucking good of that?
Might as well go to the fair and try your luck with Zoltar.
The ideas drift like a dream (or a nightmare) in through my personal, tiny, dark, dirty, wavy window.
I cup it in my hand, blow on it gently, admire it lovingly, and struggle mightily to protect it while writing the damn story that goes with it. That’s usually when the cold water comes rushing in.
And speaking of that cold water- its mine too. Sure, it came in from the outside, just like the stupid star did, but it seeps in through the basement wall.
Some of these stars deserve to drown, to be honest, if I can bare to allow it. And, that murky, sometimes nasty, basement water is often where the best stuff is.
I won’t torture this “house metaphor” any further. I think you get my point: ideas like bright & beautiful fay lights or dark & cold with things floating it all have to come in through my filters, slosh around in my living room (that’s the writing part), and go out again through my filters to you.
That’s the “me doing this” part of writing. The part I think you all want and the only part I’m willing to spend my time doing.
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Doesn’t the AI stuff come from the same sources?
Partly, maybe like 90%, but that difference is huge. It’s the entire game. Also, it’s not just the bare information but how it arrives that’s important. If inspiration arrives safe and sterile, hand delivered, it’s dead. If it comes like a brick through my window it’s alive. That’s how life serves it up.
Well, what about grammar, spelling, refining prose, all that?
Okay, disclosures: I use spell check, but not grammar check.
I don’t feel bad about spell check- its the same “what word are you trying to spell” tech that’s been around since the late 90s.
My grammar is me talking- it sounds how it sounds. You don’t like it: you don’t like me. I’ll figure out how to properly use a semicolon some day.
Same is true for the long-winded, wandering, unfocused, some-times purplish prose of my whole story: its me, I want it to be good and readable, but I have to get there on my own. Ain’t no stupid Skynet wannabe gonna do it for me.
And battling through all that is sorta the point, isn’t it? As we go along we find out what, exactly, we are thinking and what, exactly, we have to say, if anything.
That’s the damn fun part, the satisfying part where I at least feel like I’m growing. I don’t know why I’d turn that over to some glorified calculator.
Fact checking? Well, I had to check my use of the word “fay” above. I wanted to imply that the bright part of the ideas are fairy-like, but I wasn’t 100% certain of the use of fay or if I had the exact right word.
So I searched it in another window. And, I did glance at the AI summary that always pops up, how can you not, but I don’t stop there. I proceed on to the well-springs of all certainty: an on-line dictionary, Wikipedia, or some unknown article from who knows where.
I suppose I’m banking that those entries are not themselves produced by AI- more and more a losing bet. Perhaps, I’ll be forced to break out my old physical dictionary after 20 years. That will be a treat. Probably make my writing better too.
That brings up another good point: the more work I put in to all levels of a project the better its likely to be. Its like physical exercise- you can’t really outsource it.
Okay, San, so what? So you don’t like AI. Go on and put out one of your stories every few months (or years) that 2 or 3 people will read. Go on. The rest of us have to try and make writing a career.
Fine then, I will, thank you very much.
And regarding a writing career based off AI use, all I can say is that I don’t know what kind of experience that would be. It sounds pretty awful, based on the reasons mentioned above. I have no idea why anyone would do that, or read it, consistently. Sounds like living off fast food and microwave burritos.
Am I saying AI is good for nothing? No. Just writing.
Entertainment wise, I expect that in the future there will be something much bigger, that provides a more complete immersion. It will be too big and demanding for any group of people to keep up with.
Thus, we would need AI to fill in all the mundane little things that are so vital. Not sure it will be worth all the water and energy it takes, but there it is.
Writing is too small. Just me and you. It takes place in that dim, smoky, room in your mind. AI doesn’t fit. There isn’t a chair for it.
The closer reader and writer get, generally, the better we like it.
I think Stephen King said something to the effect that good writing is like skin on skin contact. Aren’t stories best unprotected, special and a bit raw? Do we really want an AI prophylactic with a silly little jiggly tip?
Again, I torture a metaphor.
Perhaps I can teach an AI to write like me:
Write it again, but make it 20 percent longer, add in multiple metaphors, drive the point into the ground yet meander and never come to any clear point. Try to be humorous and relatable but also sound erudite — use the word erudite as though you are 100% certain you know what it means. Get whats in your heart out. Wow them with your imagination. Walk lines but stay safe. Make them dream. Grow. Become something.
Do you think that’s going to get me where I want to be? I don’t.
Do you think you can stay safe and removed, be boss-baby editor-in-chief, outsource your way to personal greatness? I don’t. Its in the muck somewhere computers can’t survive. You’ll have to go get it yourself.
