The Future of the Written Arts When Human-Like Computer-Generated Prose Is Possible

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

The other day I went to you.com, that’s Y-O-U dot com, to try out the text generator. I typed in the prompt, why the A Way with Words radio show is a rip-roaring good time. And then I pressed a button, and within seconds the computer program spat out a whole paragraph.

It went, each week, hosts Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett explore the fascinating world of language, from words that are on the verge of disappearing from our lexicon to new terms that are just starting to catch on. They also offer advice on everything from how to use proper etiquette when writing a thank you note to how to handle being corrected when you’ve made a mistake in speech or writing.

And the paragraph went on, and I thought, well, maybe it was lifted from some other site. But it was entirely original. I googled every sentence. And I found this really unnerving. I mean, I’ve gotten used to computers checking my spelling. I’m glad that my phone anticipates the next word when I type.

But as somebody who spent my whole career as a writer synthesizing information and carefully crafting sentences, Grant, this just felt too close to home. So I’m trying to keep an open mind about these large language models that let you do this. But I keep asking myself, what do we lose and what do we gain from having this kind of technology specifically when it comes to writing?

I have also been playing with these, some of the so-called AI chatbots and the AI text generators. I don’t know that they’re actually artificial intelligence. I agree that they’re probably better applied language models is a good way to describe them. And I have the same considerations.

Of course, this same conversation is happening with pictures and with audio and with video and in other fields as well. What is happening when we’re analyzing all this data at a massive scale and then using it to generate new content? What are the rights of the authors of the text that’s been analyzed or the media that’s been analyzed?

Yeah, I mean, it’s fun to play with, but you also have teachers who are worrying that they can’t assign essays anymore. And I also have to wonder if our brains are outsourcing the mental work of coming up with whole paragraphs. I mean, I can’t tell you the phone numbers of anybody on my phone contact list because I’ve outsourced that memory.

And, I mean, thinking back to the 5th century B.C., Socrates worried aloud that reading would make us stupid, that if we were able to use this new technology of writing things down and reading them, that it would destroy our memories. And so I’m trying not to be a Luddite about this, but it’s still, like I said, unnerving.

You know, we talked about this offline, and I’ve been thinking about this since. And I wonder about the idea that this may free up writers from doing the chore-like kind of writing into the bigger, more thinky kind of writing that can’t be done by this automated process that computers are doing.

Writers need to interview, and computers, as far as I know, can’t interview people. Writers can connect thoughts through human experience. They will remember a contact that they had 20 years ago that a computer won’t even know about.

Right. Computers can only see what’s available in public and not in private. Right. Right. Can a computer feel sorrow that might prompt a particular kind of writing? Right. I don’t know.

Would they have the sympathy to know not to exclude information because it should not be revealed to the public because it might expose someone to danger? Mm—

I’m also thinking about, you know, we’ve seen a lot of people playing with AI and to generate images. You know, you’ve made some super cool images that you sent to me. And I can’t help but think that if Michelangelo were around, he would be doing the same thing.

He would be playing with this new technology and trying to find the good stuff, the ways that you can apply it and that can encourage your creativity, even if that’s not the final product. And I can see where typing in an idea into a text generator might help you think about putting together a presentation or a speech you want to make or something.

But I don’t know. I just keep thinking what’s lost and what’s gained. We welcome your input. If you are an expert in the field of artificial intelligence or you have gone through and applied these tools in your work, whether you are in the creative professions or the professional professions, we would love to hear about how you have applied these AI tools, no matter what the medium.

Let us know, 877-929-9673, or tell us the details in email, words@waywordradio.org.