“Artificial” Is An Important Modifier to “Intelligence”

By: Evelyn Jones

Creative writing can seem like a waste of time and effort, even as you pursue a degree or a career in it. Why would you put so much time and effort into something creative or interpretative, rather than something practical? Especially now, when Artificial Intelligence can write an essay, an article, a poem, a whole novel, about anything you ask it to, in a matter of minutes. It can give you a summary and analysis of any book you feed it. It can speed by the essential difficulties and challenges of writing by spitting out some amalgamation of keywords at your feet. Why waste time trying to come up with a way to capture the feeling of the vibrant city of Memphis, when an Artificial Intelligence– that is destroying the environment in and around that city– can generate a poem that’s “about as good as the average poem”?

The question here is rhetorical, I feel the need to make glaringly obvious. While we use the input of our shared lived experiences, symbolized in visual forms of words or audible speech, often in the same patterns or borrowing the same images as creations that already exist, here’s the kicker: we comprehend the abstract values of those codes. We can feel what the creator is trying to convey that they feel. Where an AI may be able to assemble a structure from the blocks that it’s been given, it means nothing unless meaning is assigned to it by a human. The blocks have all been shaped by human hands. The AI itself has to be coded (by humans) to build, has to be tended to (by humans) continuously, can be shut down at any time (you guessed it, by humans) and simply cease to exist. You should write what you want to write, whether you think it’s the next Great American Novel or a silly piece of fanfiction, because that’s what humans do. You have the ability to create independently, to give meaning to words, to seek connection. Humanity has the amazing ability above any other animal, plant, or object to create something from nothing in the form of thought, language, art.

Why “waste” your time on writing? Engaging in an ancient and enduring practice that has proven benefits for your health and for the health of everyone who will read the product of your labor? (Yes, reading is as important as writing) Why bother to do something imperfectly and struggle with it, building your own abilities and sharing your humanity with your audience? If you can’t figure that one out for yourself, go ask ChatGPT.