The rise and rise of AI terrifies me, says well being writer Lisa Fouweather

Ask Google ‘Can Chat GPT write books’ and the response you get is: ‘Writing a book is a time-consuming process, but with Chat GPT, you can write a lot faster. It can generate entire sections or even entire books in a fraction of the time it would take you to do it yourself.’

People say that it will ‘never get to that’, that it ‘won’t go that far’ but, I’m sure that people said exactly the same thing about Google, the internet in general, as little as 30 years ago.

But, look where we are at with the internet now.

Whereas in the years prior to the internet we would have to go out, searching literal libraries for literal books to loan if we wanted to discover new information, these days, we don’t have to go out, we just go to our pockets, reach for our phones, type the exact question(s) we want the answers to into Google (other search engines are available ) and, in the instance of my question re chat GPT being able to write books, we can get access to 2,580,000 results in 0.50 seconds.

A far quicker, more efficient process, of course the internet was going to take over from libraries, however sad this was for librarians (who lost their jobs) and library goers/book lovers (who, in some cases, might have lost their sense of ‘community’).

I struggle to see how the same will not happen with AI.

How, with the option for artificial intelligence to write books, poems, produce art for free in minutes, seconds even, businesses won’t turn to that-technology, which is readily available as a far more cost effective option.

Now, this is precisely what terrifies me.

The thought that, one day (and, perhaps ‘one day’ in the not too distant future...) we will be replaced by AI.

Our value as human beings diminished. Our value as creatives, non-existent.

The one thing that keeps me hopeful is my belief, no, my knowledge, that there is nothing greater than human connection.

AI, no matter how effective, is not human. It cannot convey the experience of being human as a human can because.

It’s not one, it’s a machine. A computer. With the absence of a soul, with the absence of the ability to feel, to love and to lust and to hurt and to heal. AI cannot replace us, no matter how seemingly ‘efficient.’

Any form of art, whether writing, painting, drawing, singing, whatever- it is the human behind the art- the artist- that makes it beautiful.

Show me a poem created by Chat GPT and, however ‘good’ it is in literary terms, in ‘spiritual’, ‘soul’ terms, it will never compare, for, the value of a poem is not in how many big words it contains, or in how perfect the spelling and grammar is (at least, in my opinion) but in the emotion, the rawness conveyed by the poet/writer/artist/creator/HUMAN behind it.

The ‘rawness’ of sharing our experience as humans that we can all, collectively, relate to simply for being a part of the human race, this is what makes poems beautiful.

The emotion and dedication that we put into books, this is what makes books readable.

And so, as much as I really dislike Chat GPT and the threat that it poses to creatives, I have faith in humans to see the value in other humans, to see the value in humanity.

Here’s to creativity prevailing.