If, with artificial intelligence, you feel it’s no longer worth writing

Ever since I discovered that artificial intelligence can write practically anything – and do so far better than I can – I have started writing less and less. It did not happen suddenly, nor on any specific day; it is something that has crept in slowly, insidiously, bringing with it a sense of futility that might even be healthy, but which is certainly surprising. The fact is that I feel a growing reluctance to write, which leads me to fall back more and more on reading. I still find myself telling myself that I ought to write an article on this or that topic, but, even before I start, I’ve already decided it would be pointless.

It is not strictly speaking laziness, though in some ways that has always been there; it is rather a sort of emptiness, as if someone had come along to occupy a space I considered my own, whilst demonstrating, moreover, that they could do so with disarming ease and skill. Artificial intelligence finds the words, constructs sentences, organises thoughts, identifies connections; it can imitate styles, change tone, be brilliant, ironic, melancholic; it can write an article in a matter of seconds, whilst I might spend an entire morning struggling to come up with a decent opening line. So why should I carry on?

I realise, of course, that the question is not only rhetorical but also flawed. I am well aware that writing is much more than simply producing a text or a competition to see who can master concepts, grammar and syntax better and more quickly. Yet knowing all this does not seem enough to restore my desire to do it. Alfonso Berardinelli wrote in this newspaper that ‘there is no escape for human intelligence. Let us not delude ourselves into thinking we can maintain a spiritual life alongside artificial intelligence’. Perhaps he, too, is exaggerating, but I certainly tend to agree with him.

Until yesterday, writing was also a way for me to feel capable of something, to make myself known: not necessarily good, not necessarily original, but at least recognisable and perhaps appreciated (one always hopes for that). Despite all my limitations, I felt I was giving voice to what I thought I understood about this or that subject. Now that voice seems superfluous to me. Having written on several occasions—with others in mind, especially younger people—about the risks of artificial intelligence eventually writing in our place, stifling our natural language and thus our thoughts, I find myself uncomfortably experiencing the effect on myself. But not in the sense – at least I hope not – that I am losing the ability to write, but rather in the sense that I am no longer sure it is worth doing. And that is perhaps even worse.

I realise that before I even formulate a thought, I’m already imagining how a machine might develop it; even before I look for a word, I think that ChatGPT would surely find a more precise and effective one; before I start an article, I find myself thinking that a better version of what I might write already exists somewhere. It feels like a pre-emptive defence, an early surrender even before taking to the field, perhaps a way of getting used to irrelevance before it even becomes official. On the other hand, once it is established that a well-argued and formally flawless text can be obtained in a matter of seconds by turning to any chatbot, what is the point of racking one’s brains to write it oneself? As far as I’m concerned, as I’ve already said, there remains the unquenchable pleasure of reading – of certain ideas that spring to mind without any pretence of being put down in writing, and of others that need to be written down to clarify them to ourselves – writing is that too. But otherwise, I’m becoming increasingly sceptical about the usefulness of writing. What gives me heart, however, is a firm conviction: that the great poets and writers are not in the least affected by what I am writing in this article. They will continue to write, without their energy being in the slightest way diminished by artificial intelligence or even by our whingeing.