Writing is thinking

Fully outsourcing your writing to AI is a slow erosion of personal agency and autonomy

Image via PJ Milani

Some activities are decidedly human affairs. Others are for machines. Some involve both, working together. But in modernity, my observation continues to be that people do not understand the difference, or really know how to integrate the two all that well. For many, every day is just spent thinking about how to get humans out of the picture, how to do things faster, or simply, “how to optimize.”

But to what end? Why? As most have not spent time seriously considering this, eventually these people will be left sitting alone in a room with nothing to do. All work handled for them, their time consumed by curated inputs, notifications, and algorithms dictating every small choice. Taken to its logical conclusion these people will willingly be strapped into machines feeding them sensory input, since their life philosophy is empty and nihilistic (spreadsheet brain). But well before that, it’s still all a slow erosion of agency, a world in which humans are present but largely irrelevant, their capacity for independently-chosen action outsourced to machines.

For those of us who don’t wish such degeneracy and to not be trapped in mouse utopia, I previous shared why you should do something like write a blog or original music (and on the physical side why you should be able to mow 2 full acres). These are just examples, you can think of specific ones you prefer of course. The more of these activities you regularly engage in, the more fulfilled you’ll be and a richer, healthier life you’ll lead (inside and out). Or you can outsource them to AI and self-domesticate further.

Related this topic, it was cool to see Nature recently publish a brief editorial on how writing is thinking, and so an escape from the thoughtless borg-like optimization creeping over this planet.

Here’s a summary (emphasis mine):

Writing scientific articles is an integral part of the scientific method and common practice to communicate research findings. However, writing is not only about reporting results; it also provides a tool to uncover new thoughts and ideas. Writing compels us to think — not in the chaotic, non-linear way our minds typically wander, but in a structured, intentional manner. By writing it down, we can sort years of research, data and analysis into an actual story, thereby identifying our main message and the influence of our work. This is not merely a philosophical observation; it is backed by scientific evidence. For example, handwriting can lead to widespread brain connectivity and has positive effects on learning and memory.

It makes sense to publish this now when two other pieces of research recently showed how AI was starting to make us less creative.

When you use AI to write everything for you, you stop thinking for yourself. There’s no other way to describe it. You might even start thinking in prompts, which I guess is fine if all you ever do is something like corporate communications or legal documentation work, and are getting a paycheck to create soulless artifacts for the factory. That work may indeed be just about efficiency.

But just make sure you don’t fully rob yourself of this deeply human affair by outsourcing your entire writing life to AI. It’s basically no different than sending a robot to the gym for you. And at that point, why bother at all? Why do anything? Why even wake up in the morning?

If your life is a continual race to use technology to make everything easier without much thought, you’ll eventually emerge helpless, ill-prepared for any of the messy situations life throws at you, or even just able to create something all that human yourself. And if you can’t understand why that matters, well, you’re suffering from AI nihilism (even people not in tech are suffering from this, like this Bloomberg writer, and they don’t really understand why).

I’m not a luddite, I don’t think you shouldn’t use technology where appropriate. But it’s not entirely obvious what you should automate and why if you’ve never mastered the basics. It’s why pilots learn to fly a Cessna before flying a 747. The pilots who don’t get very good at this are the ones who ultimately end up the subject of an NTSB investigation (ruling out mechanical error). Of note, my friend who is a pilot (and very good, easily top percentile in the world) has the most fun with and continues to fly his small plane.

You’re not really a professional in any sense if you’re reduced to purely pushing buttons and can only fly on autopilot. Using a replicator, prompting a machine, even conducting a Google search could be important, but by itself is a thin kind of literacy. You certainly will never build anything that’s remembered very long if this is the extent of your abilities. You’ll also never develop real (or more importantly, unique) aesthetic. And anyway, the people who do cede everything to machines are the ones who actually will be replaced by AI, because why would we need them any longer?