I cannot remember when or from whom I heard this, but it was a response by an older writer to a younger writer. It went like this: “Do you want to be a writer? Or do you want to write?”

The speaker was not talking about creativity in the 21st century, in a world of chatbots, generative AI, and machine learning. They were speaking of something much more fundamental. Namely, what writing feels like. It’s something we are likely to forget about in a world where the value of writing is measured in number of readers (or followers / subscribers / buyers) and a world where a writer is ‘successful’ if they have ‘produced’ a lot of words in very little time.

But we don’t often talk about the value that the act of writing provides to the writer.

Perhaps because it is not the same for everyone. Some get clarity of thought, some get headaches and heartburn. Some find joy and meaning in it and some get told that the piece they are working on was due yesterday. If I worked at a content farm whose only purpose was to churn out large amounts of copy on an hourly basis to satisfy the needs of search engine robots instead of human beings who actually read, I too would perhaps turn to ChatGPT. That, at least, is understandable.

I also understand people who are not writers using chatbots to write. If an artist generates captions or accompanying text for their paintings using generative AI because writing those is a chore that they can do without, I get it. Technology is best used to reduce human effort and free us to do the things that really matter to us.

And this is exactly what I don’t understand about writers using generative AI tools to write — actually write — their novels. I can understand them using chatbots to edit what they have written, to bounce ideas off a large language model, or to perform research and other similar background tasks. I cannot, for the life of me, understand how a writer can forego the act of writing itself.

Because the effort writing requires is its own reward. It enriches the one who is engaged in the task of writing. Think of it like exercising. If your goal is to become an athlete, you will need to exercise your body. If a technology comes into being that allows you to become an athlete without exercise and practice, would you go for it? I think such technologies already exist — they’re called performance enhancing drugs. People get thrown out of professional sports because of it.

I can understand someone in need of such drugs for health reasons. I can understand people using those drugs because they are impaired somehow. But I cannot understand why someone who loves playing the game would go for them. Could it be that they want to be known as a player of the game more than they want to play the game?

Could it be that some people want to be a writer more than they want to write?

Our AI dissonance

I am not a technophobe. Far from it.

I am usually an early adopter of technology and am also very future-oriented. I have been watching the conversation around generative AI and have nuanced views about it. Some days ago, I recorded this podcast episode.