Artificial Intelligence and Writing

In the last few weeks, ChatGPT has caused a stir for a number of reasons. Some, like its ability to write a parody of Elon Musk’s life in the style of Bob Dylan, are honestly hilarious. What it implies for the future of professional writers like myself is . . . a lot less funny.

The first thing I thought of when faced with this likely future was Kurt Vonnegut’s Player Piano. I wasn’t the first person to make this connection. In the novel, factories produce everything we need with little to no human input. Most people spend either 20 years in the army or 20 years performing menial manual labor. And those who have what would be called a normal job are so overeducated and specialized in their role that they give carpenter ants a run for their money.

There’s nothing inherently wrong about the world Player Piano presents. People are fed and comfortable, and most wouldn’t have it any other way. Yet, even in the 1950s, Vonnegut knew that automation would eventually come for the very activities we would find time to do in an automated world – creating art.  

Now, I’m no artist in the traditional sense. I can’t imagine how people who spent years studying painting/drawing/etc. feel about an algorithm spitting out a completed work in seconds. But I remember how I felt reading Vonnegut’s line about a vending machine that wrote and printed novels in different genres.

What would be the point of living in a world like that, one where all modes of human expression have been co-opted? Could there be art for art’s sake in that kind of world? I don’t know.

Art is what makes us human, what made our ancestors who rubbed ash figures on cave walls stand apart from the countless other species that called Earth home throughout the eons. To make that natural impulse irreverent . . . can we still be called human?

I don’t have answers to these questions. But what I’m certain of is that I can promote the idea of a world where someone picking up a pen or brush isn’t wasting their time.

Kurt wouldn’t have it any other way.