AI Subverts the Writing Process
(According to a tech writer)
From The Guardian by Wendy Liu:
“I’ve published many thousands of words, with countless more left on the cutting-room floor. But even the discarded words never felt wasted, because they were the byproduct of thinking. Any writer can attest to the transformational nature of the writing process: you can start out with one idea, only to end up somewhere quite different. Writing is more than a matter of merely outputting words. It’s a matter of discovering what your values are and convincing yourself that they’re worth fighting for.”
“In the past, I would have embraced any seemingly revolutionary new technology. And yet, today, I avoid using AI as much as possible. I am wary of cognitive offloading, as tempting as it can be to turn over certain tasks to a machine so I don’t have to think so much. Thinking is the point. I don’t want to get into the habit of avoiding it purely for the sake of convenience.”
Lev Raphael is the prize-winning author of twenty-seven books in genres from memoir to mystery and hundreds of essays, short stories, book reviews, blogs and substacks. Michigan State University collects his literary papers in recognition of his contributions to American Literature. He has been using em-dashes since the 1970s and doesn’t intend to quit. :-)
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Nobody will ever take my em dashes.
Of course writing is thinking!