Why study writing or art in the age of AI?
/And I’m off… out of the door and down the path, tripping along with a staff and a pocket handkerchief (or some such) on a new adventure that will likely be rather uncomfortable, but may eventually make a good story.
My Master of Fine Arts program is truly underway with readings for a couple of weeks at the beginning of summer term and then two-weeks of intensive seminars and workshops from morning ‘til night in the Eastern Oregon mountains. This has my blood flowing again. It’s been a couple of decades since I was last exhilarated.
And while this is tame compared to some of the adventures I undertook “back in the day,” it is a strange time to be studying writing or any kind of art, even if my ostensibly sensible reason is that I can always teach online if the market remains recalcitrantly focused on celebrities. With AI writing and art surging across the internet, the future of creative professions is more in question than at any time in the past.
Over the centuries and millennia, art and literature have weathered technological limitations, economic depression, political repression, the malaise of unsatisfying debauchery, black holes of inspiration, market saturation, celebrity obsessions and even the lethargy of widespread prosperity in the 20th century. There have been many times when writers and artists have bemoaned the state of the field or even cried the end of art.
Image of a young girl in a white dress drawing in a notebook on grass - Creative commons image from fawke of flickr.com
Yet, somehow AI is a whole new level.
If a lay person sometimes can’t differentiate between AI writing and the work of a skilled human writer, isn’t it finally all over for us? Why on earth would I devote the time, not to mention the money, to study creative writing at the highest level? The market has already shown that only a tiny fraction of publishing will include new, non-celebrity authors. Self-publishing is dead in the water as a means of livelihood, though it may be fun for family or interest-group memoirists.
And yet…
I am embarking on this course of study most of all because it brings me joy and delight, a rare feeling in this of all years. The prospect of spending two years discussing word-craft and story with fellow writers feels to me like I am seven-years-old again, entering the old general store at the end of the long bike ride from Pumpkin Ridge, gazing at the racks upon racks of bright-colored candy laid out before me—pure delicious sweetness and a much needed reward for a lifetime of grindstones.
Yes, some of us just love writing or art so much that the hope of making a living at it is mostly a matter of wishing not to have to have a day. job. We aren’t looking for riches, just a way to scrape by and write all day. But let’s try to be sensible or reasonable here. Other than childish self-indulgence, is there still value in writing as a calling, a profession or a high art?
The modern world is so full of cynicism and cliche that when I first contemplated this post, I found myself balking. A little voice inside me cried out that it doesn’t matter if there is any reasonable reason. We NEED art! I NEED writing! Nothing else matters.
But after wading into some of the initial reading for my courses, including for a workshop by Oregon writer Kim Stafford, I did find “good reasons” that we need human writers. To list a few:
Good fiction is one of the few times we truly absorb someone else’s perspective. This world is in sore need of empathy and AI, for all its uses, will never be a substitute for that.
Writing in all its forms is communication, a way to bridge gaps and impart both emotions and sensations. Readers may not always know where or how, but we still need that call from one to another.
We need, for instance, to raise the alarm of climate change and ecological destruction, a theme that has become prominent in my courses. AI could possibly mimic this kind of writing, except that most of it has not been done yet, the field of environmental writing is still young.
AI writing uses a set number of words to say a specific thing. It does not know nuance or how to write between the lines. It doesn’t do emotional complexity. In a polarized, black-and-white society, the capacity of human writers to say things subtly and in shades of gray is essential.
In a media culture where facts have become mutable, corruptible and expendable, story is a desperately needed antidote. Facts may be obscured and statistics manipulated by those with money and power, but one’s own true story still remains in the hands of each individual person. It can be faked, but there’s a zing to authenticity that is palpable and hard to manufacture. It’s the weapon of the human writer.
While one can stand on a street corner and shout or even post a shouting YouTube video today, writing still remains a uniquely empowering means of expression. Once an individual has versatile writing skills, that person will never be as trapped or as vulnerable to exploitation as they would have been without it. Teaching writing then is the work of empowering others.
These are just a few of the things that have come to me as I dive into my first courses. Can you think of any more “good reasons” to pursue writing? Post them in the comments. <3
I don’t know how financially lucrative the writing profession will be over the next ten or twenty years. That is unpredictable and likely rather bleak. But if past experience with artisan skills that have faded in recent generations carries over, it may well be that within a few decades, solid word-smithing skills may become rare and precious.
