Why AI Is An Opportunity For Creative Writers

An Optimistic Outlook For The Future Of New AI Tools like ChatGPT

Photo by Lorenzo Herrera on Unsplash

AI is a lot of things — new, confusing, exciting, bizarre. It’s certainly scary to many of us. But there’s one thing it’s not — human.

What I mean is this: AI is not imaginative or original. It can’t actually come up with anything new on the spot like humans, but rather it is an amalgamation of other things that have been written, said, and produced before. In a sense, it’s a conventional wisdom machine. This idea was disussed in a recent podcast by Mickey Kaus and Robert Wright on the NonZero podcast. AI rewrites and regurgitates what has already been said.

Here’s an interesting discussion point. There’s been evidence that artificial intelligence programs can detect other AI-generated writing, like from ChatGPT. This is fascinating to me. There is something so unnatural and inhuman about it, down to an almost indiscernible level, that big companies like Google have the ability to detect AI-generated text and even demonetize and demote it — or prioritize it.

Whether you love or hate this technological revolution, AI has become a major topic of contention. Medium itself has been flooded with articles on the new technology, both for and against. Many have wondered what this may mean for creative writers, especially as the the higher ups at Medium have agreed to paying out on articles generated by AI.

But I don’t see AI as a threat to creative writers — yet. In my experience, ChatGPT and other tools can only produce creative writing on par with fifth or sixth grade creative essays. Maybe this will change. It’s certainly possible. But it seems that ChatGPT and other tools are better at more mundane things, like technical, B2B, or research writing.

With increasing guard rails on these tools, I suspect this may only be more of the case in the future. This presents an opportunity for creative writers. In an age where everything may just become more of the same, with more folks utilizing AI tools to generate mundane pieces of text, creative writers — using heart and ingenuity it only humans can provide — could become even hotter commodities. Unique creative writing will be more needed than ever to keep people engrossed and entertained in a world where content is constantly being generated.

I find it hard to believe that the AI could’ve written Dante’s Inferno or The Grapes of Wrath or The Sun Also Rises or The Lord of the Rings. I’ll admit that surely we’re on our way to a new paradigm. But just as physical books seem to continue on as a preferred method of reading for many, I don’t think anything will ever replace reading a story produced by another human soul. Humanity longs for connection, and little can connect us more than writing and communication itself.

So, for now, we can sit back and relax. AI will help weed-out the bad writers with those who over-utilize it. After all, creative writing is not easy. But it’s certainly worth it.