If you can’t tell the difference between a novel written by a human being and one written by AI, why do you care?
We need a good answer to that question, because we’ll soon be dealing with AIs that are all but human. Unless we’re prepared to surrender to them in many dimensions of life, we will need a good reason for saying we are superior.
So let me ask it: Are we superior? If so, how? We may have some work to do to win that argument with the bots.
For those who are skeptical that this issue is real, let me tell you about the Author’s Guild online bulletin board shared by professional writers. Some writers have been accused of using AI who insist they haven’t. The Author’s Guild tested software that is supposed to detect AI writing: the programs identified work as being AI-written that was created before AI existed.
Practically, a writer cannot prove his or her authenticity. And readers now must answer the question I posed at the beginning of this newsletter. Do you care? If you read genre fiction—romance novels, mysteries, thrillers—AI may be able to give you the same beach days of pleasure as a human writer. What’s the difference?
AI models are poised to achieve key aspects of human consciousness, likely within a few years. The ability to reason about the world and about oneself; theory of mind, deception and imagination; creation of self-models that persist through time, which can yield a sense of personal identity.
What no one knows how to build, however, is the ability to experience the world as an embodied entity with emotions. For people, emotions always come first, followed by rational thought. AI is pure intellect.
AIs can ape any formulaic writing, and often do it better than most people. But without senses and emotions, AI cannot be expressive, and so it cannot write originally or be truly creative. It has no feelings or drives to express.
A powerful AI, a bit ahead of what we have now, could be a terrific therapist, comparing a client’s thoughts to a vast trove of others’ thinking, developing strategies to influence the client positively, and even coming up with solutions that no one thought of before.
But the AI won’t be able to connect, as a good friend or a great book can connect. That’s my hunch. And that’s why I think we’ll insist on books by real people. At least, those of us who want to read good books—personal, literary books that cannot be crammed into a formula.
And that brings me to being better than the bots. Many people don’t read good books like that. For, some, human connection isn’t a priority.
For them, perhaps there isn’t a reason to care if AI becomes our equal, does our work, and writes our books, so long as the machines keep us fed and entertained. (I’m imagining the first scenes of The Matrix.)
For those uncomfortable with that future, we must insist on human connections in books and everywhere in life. We must keep building those connections every day of our lives.
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