Writing and Artificial Intelligence Don't Go Together

Much of my disdain for AI came about when I started hearing about people using it for writing. As I’ve said many times, I don’t think students should use AI for any writing-related tasks, as it prevents them from doing the hard thinking they need, especially when they are young.

But as an author, I am even more frustrated by the idea of AI replacing real writing. Writing and expressing and communicating are all critically important human skills. We need them to succeed in today’s world. We can’t give this up just because AI may make it seem a bit easier.

In the late William Zinsser’s great book, On Writing Well, he talks about writing being hard to do, and he tells a story about another man who claims writing is easy and brags that he doesn’t plan or think much about his topics before he writes. Zinsser is critical of this approach, and I agree with him. Writing is not easy, but I love doing it. There is something special about thinking and planning and putting in the time to draft a story or an article in the best possible form.

Now there are people who successfully write based in intuition. Stephen King is just such a “Pantser”, and he does not plot his stories beforehand. Instead, he trusts his instincts and creativity and writes most of his novels without knowing exactly how they will end. This is pure creativity, real art, and it does not rely on any form of artificial influence

Thankfully, I am not alone in rejecting AI as a reasonable method to produce writing. I recently read an article by

Leonard

on his “Leonard Tilllerman’s Book Blog Bonanza” Substack newsletter with the title, “What’s Wrong With Using Artificial Intelligence to Write? Just ask my Grandpa.” In the article, Tillman makes some excellent points on why AI is not a legitimate replacement for real writing. He lists some of the recent arguments some people use to defend using AI for writing and then skillfully refutes each one.

For example, Tillman writes how some people claim AI helps them “generate ideas for research.” He responds to this with “I get it. I’m just not buying it,” and adds “I think the entire writing process has to be generated by our own minds. Every part of it.”