“Trust me, you’ve got to see this movie!”

“What’s it about?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

“It’ll ruin the surprise. Just trust me, it’s going to blow your mind.”

And so, based on the advice of a friend, I bought my ticket and saw a little movie called The Matrix.

And. It. Blew. My. Mind.

It still does, in fact.

For the somehow uninitiated, The Matrix paints a picture of a not-so-distant future where *SPOILER ALERT* machines have enslaved humanity. Terrifying. But lately, with the meteoric rise of AI, it doesn’t feel as far off as it used to.

Released in 1999, I think The Matrix perfect captures the scary yet hopeful sentiment of the Y2K tech-savvy era. In fact it is my belief that technology is the hallmark of my generation. The dawn of the internet. The rise and fall of technologies that kids nowadays would probably see in a museum. I grew up with a rotary phone, made the transition to buttons then cordless. I’ve owned a brick phone, flip phone, slide phone, and now multiple smartphones. I remember pagers, two-ways, razors, and sidekicks. I once used a palm pilot. Yes, I had a MySpace page, and AIM is what I did every day after school.

Now I’ve never identified with the term millennial. It somehow fell short of my feelings for my technological coming of age in the 80s/90s. So when I read Anna Garvey’s article about The Oregon Trail Generation, I finally found my tribe. That was me. I was an Oregon Trail person. (See: https://www.popsugar.com/tech/how-technology-influenced-generation-x-37522155)

Yet, for someone born to be comfortable with such a rapid evolution of technology, I was shocked that I am so UNcomfortable with AI. Not so much that it exists (do I really think The Matrix will happen IRL? No? Maybe? I don’t know.), but that people are using AI so heavily in their writing process.

I love tech, but using AI in my writing is something I will never do. Here’s why:

1. I’m a writer, not an editor. Even if you use AI to assist in your writing, and it accurately mimics your style, tone, etc. you still need to monitor its output for quality. I don’t want to edit, I want to write! In fact, editing is my least favorite part about the writing process. And when I want a second pair of eyes, I’ll just ask my spellcheck. Or a human.
2. Writing is language, and language is what defines humanity. Language is what sets us apart from the animals (j/k: a shout out to the amazing research at Cornell Lab of Ornithology on the complexities of birdsong, https://academy.allaboutbirds.org/birdsong/) But when you write, when you speak, when you communicate, you are helping to shape culture. You are leaving behind artifacts for future generations about what it was like at a certain time in a certain place. How cool is that? I mean, think of the “strange” turns of phrase your own grandparents use that make you scratch your head. Language is part of a collective culture to which we are constantly contributing. And I don’t want to contribute AI’s words to that culture, I want to contribute my own. Which brings me to my next point.
3. Writing is deeply personal. My writing process is about 50% in my head and 50% in front of the keyboard. In fact, I think daydreaming/outlining is my favorite part of writing (more on that next week). I can tell AI what I’ve experienced and how it made me feel, and it could help me think of what to write and how to say it, but it can’t really be in my head. It can’t picture what I’m picturing. Nor do I want it to. Using AI to brainstorm or help fill in plot points, to me, strips away that personal creative process. And to my final point.
4. AI stifles creativity. AI has an astounding ability to mimic a person’s writing style, but it can only use what it has been fed to spit something out the other end. Kurt Vonnegut. Virginia Woolf. Jack Kerouac. Each had a unique and downright iconic writing style. They stand out. Sure, AI could write a book in the style of Kurt Vonnegut (and I would probably read it). But it had to start with the writer himself and his unique way of communicating with the world. If everyone used AI to write, to me that paints a picture of a rather bleak, uniform world, where nobody is ever writing anything unique. Just like the controversial use of Wiki as a valid research source back in my day, AI is already being used by kids to bypass the creative writing process. And that makes me sad. I want kids to want to be the next Vonnegut, Woolf, and Kerouac.

I will never judge someone for using AI, maybe that’s just how they work best. But for me, personally, the writing process is how I organize and present my thoughts to the world, and I want that to be 100% me. And I will continue to do so until the machines break down the door and tell me otherwise.