AI steals self expression from us. We don't have to let it happen
Earlier today, I was looking at my grandfather’s old typewriter he gave me several years ago and started thinking about how there was a time when writing was something you did on a typewriter, or by hand, and it wasn’t seen as some “niche” way to record your thoughts, just the standard way it was done.
It was a tool, not a stylish thing that men with handlebar mustaches posed next to on social media to fit their “vibe.”
Then it got me thinking, will we get to the point where writing itself will become a niche? Where when we don’t use AI to write for us, it’ll be seen as “retro” or “classic”? Because, I’m going to be honest with you, I don’t think I could handle that evolution.
AI has gotten impressive. I was playing around with an AI model that took key words you gave it and wrote fully formed songs with lyrics, melody, beat, and everything. It’s both terrifying and amazing how advanced it has become.
But, I worry that we’re losing our grasp on our own humanity. The difference between going from a typewriter to a computer and writing on a computer vs letting AI write something for you may seem like a natural progression of technology. It’s anything but.
When I write something on a typewriter, it’s slower, but it comes from my own fingers, my own thoughts, and my own efforts. The same thing when I write on a computer. Every word on the page, or the screen, was chosen by me.
But with AI, that’s not the case. I give it a prompt and the program does the rest. While some of us may feel like that’s a relief because making those choices about what words to use can seem daunting, I don’t think that’s a choice we want to give away so freely.
Let’s say that the next election cycle, we have candidates running for office who are all using AI to write their speeches. While yes, they can still have speechwriters adjust the words, but, doesn’t it seem creepy that candidates could verbalize messages that aren’t human in order to convince other humans to vote for them?
Or, what happens when the first musician using AI lyrics wins a Grammy for best songwriting? It doesn’t seem possible yet, but it could in the future. Can we really claim that the artist did the songwriting? Are we ready to give artificial intelligence creative awards? Based on what? The creativity portrayed by a non-human? Sounds terrifying if you ask me.
And it’s closer than we think. Last year, the AI song “Heart on My Sleeve,” by Drake and the Weeknd was submitted to the Grammy’s. The only issue? Neither Drake nor the Weeknd had anything to do with its creation.
Some of you reading this will likely think, “Jake you’re overreacting. AI is a tool and it’s used to aid people in creating works, not replace them.” And yes, that’s the idea. But, we don’t have any established boundaries keeping those of us who wish to use AI as a tool on the same plain as those who are already using AI to replace every form of communication.
Becoming a paid writer/author already was challenging enough, but now it’s gotten even harder because if your only goal is to make money from writing, you can use AI to create works in a matter of seconds that someone may be willing to purchase from you vs having to work years and years to do the same thing.
Which brings me back to my original point. We quit using typewriters, but we didn’t lose our humanity. We didn’t lose our self expression. We didn’t lose our ability to touch others with our own words, feelings and ideas when that happened.
Why should we be so willing to give those up now for convenience? Especially since the people who are creating AI models aren’t novelists, aren’t poets, aren’t songwriters, aren’t speechwriters. They’re programmers. People good with 1’s and 0’s. Yet we’re supposed to accept that what they’re giving us should be used by everyone and accepted as “just technology advancing into a new age?”
Says who? Nobody asked the artists, writers, musicians and other creators if they wanted or needed these tools. They just happen to be a part of our lives now and we’re just expected to either adopt them or get left behind.
It feels like we’re getting ripped off, and the only way to stop it is to try and show how actual human expression can never be as authentic if it’s coming from a non-human. But, sadly, we’re getting to the point where that line is getting blurred more and more and people don’t tend to care where their art is created or by whom.
And that is perhaps the greatest sadness of all. Not that AI exists, but that people don’t seem to care anymore about how it’s stripping human expression from our hands.
I know this column won’t get many views, but, I felt the need to write it anyhow. It needs to be said, and if even one person reads it, then maybe we’ll remember that we can still fight back. All it takes is enough of us to say “This isn’t OK.” We have the power to change things for the better. But the first step is to recognize what the problem is. There’s still time.