The sudden rise of advanced AI that can mimic human writing has shaken things up. When a machine can write essays, poems, and code, it is often incredible with surprising flow – we wonder: Who is the author here? And can we still call it ours?
Much of the anxiety comes from how easily the boundary between humans and machines has begun to blur. It makes it difficult to know what counts as authentic creativity. Some argue that these language models are not creative at all. It draws from a huge archive of existing materials and remixes of what is absorbed.
There is also growing concern that being too focused on AI can dull your creative instincts. When it becomes difficult to separate what people produce from what people produce, we risk losing contact with the essentials.
However, these concerns are not completely new. Technical concerns follow a cyclical pattern. Early hieroglyphs gave way to writing after the oral culture was born. Plato feared that writing would weaken memory and create only the appearance of wisdom. He said it in writing. With his dialogue Phaedrushe speaks of how the Egyptian God theuth offers to write as a gift, but King Tamas sees it as a double-edged sword, a tool that may depend on rather than understanding. Plato thought about writing Pharmakon—A toxic treatment.
Centuries later, Augustine repeated the same fears towards him. Confession. Outsourcing memories to texts can undermine the integrity of thought, he warned. Today, these same concerns are resurfaced around AI. Does it become a cognitive crutch, blunt attention and erode understanding? The change in media from stylus to scroll, printing presses to algorithms – but worry remains stubbornly human. The copy overtakes the original. Tools replace skills.
Jacques Derrida, a French philosopher best known for developing the concept of deconstruction, has resumed this question, despite being unfairly reduced to the demigods of campus. Plato’s Pharmacy. He focused Pharmaconic As the key to Plato’s ambivalence: not only the label of writing, but also the indication of the dual nature of language. Derrida used it to challenge the idea of ​​”original” that has not been touched upon by mediation. To him, the meaning is never modified, but it is always postponed. Différance. Origins exist, but only as interpretation. From that perspective, text generated in AI may not be as meaning-threatening as it reveals how meaning is always done.
Technoscience cultural theorists Donna Haraway and Katherine Hales take this further. Haraway’s Cyborg and Hayles’ “technology” – the co-evolution of humans and tools – challenges the idea of ​​a clean boundary between humans and machines. In this view, it is exaggerated, but AI writing is not an anomalous, but an amplification of the long history of hybrid authors.
Meanwhile, the human costs of our digital lifestyles are becoming increasingly clear. Lauren Euler, a novelist and literary critic known for her Sardnick wit, skewering her identity performance online, her debut novel. Fake accounts. There, self-correction becomes stiff into emotional separation. Elsewhere, she emphasizes the irreplaceable nature of human judgment in literary criticism.
Psychologist Shelley Thakur warns that he swapped the conversation for connections. Computer scientist Jaron Lanier laments the flattening of individual voices. Without tone, timing, or presence, empathy begins to escape.
We are now facing a boring crisis where voices are drowned by noise. In a world of self-saturated with algorithm output and curated algorithmic output, what does it mean to speak and be heard in your own voice?
What sets us apart is not how hard we strive, but how much we present ourselves in the final product. Text is important when it moves us – astonishing us with insights and remembering us when it speaks with confidence. Whether it’s hand-shaping or algorithms, it’s resonance, not origin, that matters.
As another critic has, creativity is caused by “influence anxiety.” In one way or another, originality stands on the shoulders of the giant. But we are already a mixture of dust and God. That doesn’t mean kneeling at their feet.
Perhaps it’s not about drawing a hardline between the real thing and the fake. The key is to stay involved. As Emil Zora urged, courage to “live loudly” makes a difference.
Notes and reading
“…I’m here to live loudly.” – Generally due to emilzola, but the exact source is unknown. This quote is interpreted as reflecting his candid artistic and political stance.
Fake accounts -Lauren Oyler (2021). a Washington Post Best Book of the Year. – See also “Agency Sense: Conversation with Lauren Euler” – Paris Reviews (April 3, 2024). Euler is refreshingly unconfirmed. She’s a serious, welcoming break. I laugh and cry.
Cyborg Manifest -Donna Haraway (1985); How we became a posthuman -N. Katherine Hayles (1999). Together alone – Sherithakur, (2011); You’re not a gadget -Jaron Lanier, (2010).
“Influence anxiety” – From literary critic Harold Bloom. Bloom wrote mainly about poetry, but the concept today resonates with the pressure and inheritance of machine-generated creativity.
“Is AI alive? What’s ahead and how do we face it?” – Three-part essay: See clearly, judge carefully, and act correctly – by Brian Ja Boyd, The new Atlantis (Spring 2025). Boyd is a strategic consultant for the journal and a moral theologian at Loyola University New Orleans.
Notes: Pope Francis used the concept of “integrated ecology” to highlight the deep interconnectivity of everything and how it cannot alone address moral challenges, including AI. Prophecy is idyllic and obsessed with obsessive communication of doctrine.It’s truly idyllic because it involves care, listening and moral courage. (rear Evangeli Gaudium §231)
AI for Educators: Learning Strategies, Teacher Efficiency, and the Vision of Artificial Intelligence – Matt Miller (2023). Rather than fearing AI, teachers can use it to reduce burnout, personalize learning, and increase student engagement. – Mirror I have spent more than a decade teaching technology in public schools.
uptught – Ken Macroly (1970). It’s outdated but timely. “Formula-style” essays criticize students to force themselves to write mechanically instead of self-expression. This is a worry that is new to the age of AI where the challenges are not just about creating text, but also about saying realistic things. Macroly was Professor Emeritus at West Michigan University and author of Tell me what I want to write (4th edition) and many other books.
from Nick Cave, Rockstar and spiritual areaist (Subsack Red hand file)):
“What you create is not ultimately your own, but it’s all you. Your imagination is, for me, a contingent dance between collected memories and influence, not essential to you. Rather, it is a structure that awaits spiritual ignition.”
Tip #208 – Burnout Gospel
Tip #207 – Not a beast, but a spreadsheet
Approx. 2 + 2 = 5
Source: 2 + 2 = 5 – williamgreen.substack.com
