Why I Am Right About AI
Human writers are expensive, and they eventually die. AI is cheaper, and will never join a union.
Human writing is on the brink of extinction, at least according to Claude AI. The machine-generated birthday message for the author's sister-in-law, which consisted of four sentences, seemed fine to her. The author then humorously likened a machine's birthday message to a novel or newspaper article, arguing that both ultimately consist of words. She asserts that the quantity of words matters more than the content, using examples like banana, spelunk, donkey, and Hitler to illustrate her point.
Historically, roles once performed by humans have been replaced by machines, such as delivering ice and making candles. The author draws parallels between these examples and the potential decline of human writing. She also contrasts good writing, which she claims contains insight, judgment, and truth, with the absence of evidence supporting this claim.
The author dismisses the idea that human writing is essential to thought, stating that people can think without writing. She argues that the paragraph is a formality like the necktie, and society shouldn't be built around it. The idea that machines make things up is met with acceptance, as writers also create fiction. The author dismisses concerns about the blandness and repetitiveness of machine-generated prose, noting that the economics of writers being expensive and machines being cheap further support the decline of human writing.
Finally, the author addresses the deeper concern about meaning and connection between writer and reader. He dismisses this notion as unfalsifiable and inconsequential, concluding that the era of human writers is over, having lasted several centuries.
Written by urgent.news from The Atlantic's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
