I Don’t Care if A.I. is So Good We Can’t Tell it’s Not Human. That’s Not The Point.

AS A.I. GETS BETTER at generating the breadth of human expression, we continue to obsess, squint and stare to find evidence for the lack of a soul. Even as the generated becomes indistinguishable from the real, we try to pick out the “tells”: weird fingers, em dashes — until those tells, too, disappear.

This line of argument by the anti-A.I. crowd — that A.I. could never be as “good” as humans — misses the entire point. I don’t care if it is bad or good. I don’t even care if it’s “better” than what real people can produce.

When I write an essay, or a song, or a talk, or a proposal at work, I want it to be good, of course. But it being good is a secondary goal. My real goal? To distill some idea — some concept or emotion or experience — in my squishy, tragically analog, meat-based brain, and wrestle it into words or shapes or sounds. My goal is for you to experience those words, shapes and sounds, and to be able to reconstruct some of my thoughts in you. To see what I see; to feel what I feel.

It’s about connection between multiple minds, sharing all the fun and boring parts of human experience.

For the past year I have struggled to express how I feel about generative A.I. Yes, it is an incredibly impressive leap forward in technology. Yes, it has great potential to boost scientific research. But also, its data centres cause undue environmental and humanitarian harm. Its use displaces millions of jobs. Its very existence poisons the open web of human information that it so freely trains on. And also it just feels tacky and gross.

But that doesn’t quite encompass my distaste.

There is something so ineffably insulting when someone experiences your writing through an A.I. summarisation. When instead of engaging with the text you spent your time carefully crafting, they ask the A.I. chatbot for details on what you meant. Or, instead of sending you a terse email, you get an A.I.-generated, 3-liner, Kind regards Perfect Email Message. Goddamnit. I would rather you just send me your unformatted bullet points.

This is not to condemn those who do this — I get it, people are busy (and I am a known yapper). But it makes me feel like shit. It makes me throw my hands up in the air and sigh and mouth, “oh come on.” It makes me question what the point of it all is.

Because what is the point? What is the point of us sending each other generated and summarised emails, back and forth, trying to talk to each other through layers of warped glass and souped up autocomplete? What is the point of me, trying to put myself in your shoes, stitching together the exact string of words that I think will best tickle your brain cells, if you then pick apart that string and run it through the synonym-and-fancy-word-remover bingo-ball-spinner-3000? What is the fucking point?

There are times when I wonder: could I ever write loudly enough to be heard through the A.I.?

When I’ve had my work summarised, people have asked me, “well, is it inaccurate?” And most times, no, it’s an accurate portrayal of what I tried to say. But that’s not the point. When I write — when anyone writes — I am not just trying to give you a statement. If that’s all I wanted to do I’d just write one sentence and be done with it. I am framing that statement in a particular way, and constructing arguments such that you follow my logic, you feel my conviction, and you understand my position. This essay could be summarised as, “the author expresses her distaste for A.I. generated writing regardless of quality, because generated writing lessens the human aspect.” And it would be correct. But would you feel it the same?

Or, I could run my essay through generated rewrites. Ones that would offer better clarity, more apt metaphors, less brain typos. Ones that make me sound less pretentious and removes the references to French philosophers that no one would get. It would objectively be a better essay. But then, what’s the fucking point? It wouldn’t be me saying all of this anymore, would it? It wouldn’t be me connecting with you. It would just be you, gazing upon a simulation of me, in the desert of the real.

There are some who will claim I am a hater because I am actually envious of the machine. Because anyone can be a good writer now, and I am chasing a useless skill. But I want to be doubly clear: being “good” is not the point. I mean, I want to be good, but that quality needs to be in service of communication, of human connection, of cultivating self-improvement.

Do we throw away our children’s scribbles because they suck? No, we post them on the fridge proudly, because that’s their shitty drawing, that’s their attempt at expressing themselves in this tumultuous world. These cringeworthy words are my cringeworthy words. Your awkward electronic music in Garageband is yours. The quality is not the point. The effort is the point. The effort to achieve some level of quality, some level of resonance in someone else’s heart and mind — that is what’s so embarrassingly, wonderfully, woefully human.

In our limited time alive, we’re all just fallible, feeling beings, reaching out into the void to put our palm print on the cave wall, in hopes that some one else will see it. And isn’t that the real point of it all? ◼️

Oh hi there. I hope you’ve been well. I’ve been stuck in my small hometown for over a month longer than planned, so I’m going a little loopy and needed to vent. You’ve caught me at my most old-man-yells-at-cloud moment. I’m sure that arguments can be made for real art made by humans using generative A.I. as a tool. But that’s not what I’m feeling, that’s not what the culture’s feeling, and I wanted to express that, as best as I could.

You might’ve noticed some excessive em dash use here — this is on purpose! I am reclaiming it for the humans!! You have no idea how pissed I felt at that viral YouTube video that claimed that em dashes were a tell for A.I. generated writing. Bitch I use em dashes all the time — the right ASCII character, too (⌥⇧- or Alt 0151). I use clichéd similes and groups of three. If that makes me predictable then so be it. Let me use them!! I like them!!

What do you think about this age of A.I. generated everything? Are you feeling frustration? Optimism? Feel free to hit reply, or forward to your friends, or share & yell into the void about it. As always, you can find a permacopy on my website and subscribe here.

The world is ever so chaotic but I hope you’ve been able to find some quiet enjoyment today, even if it’s in the small moments, even if it’s reading this silly little rant in your inbox.

With love,

—Serena