Why Bother Writing? Creation Versus Curation in the Dawn of AI
If there is something I believe that AI will almost certainly take away, it is our creativity. In fact, I feel like the creative regression in my life is already profoundly noticeable. When I can’t think of the write way to phrase an email, I ask Claude to do it for me. As soon as I’m handed an assignment task sheet—straight into ChatGPT. Need to think of some marketing copy or a new branding design? I’d prefer to not think. As a preference, that makes sense. Outsourcing your most demanding tasks, those that challenge you to think critically and creatively, without significant payoff, is undoubtedly useful. But it is also terrifyingly easy.
Allowing someone else to generate ideas for you is excellent for meeting deadlines, reducing stress, and saving you time. Yes, using AI as a crutch drastically cuts your time on task. For now. But soon it will no longer be an inefficiency—a shortcut—in the system. Rather, it will be the system. When everyone adopts AI, email and text suddenly become a dialogue between robots. Institutions will accept that they can’t stop you from writing assignments with AI, so they will instead ask AI to help them adjust the syllabus, or create new assessment types. Workplaces will understand that you are slower, more error-prone, and more human than the machine. Inefficiency doesn’t drive profit.
Yet, you know all this. These predictions are not groundbreaking. Ultimately, AI is an advantage right now. You lose that advantage though when it becomes the norm. Your ideas will swiftly become replaceable, because they were never your ideas in the first instance. That doesn’t matter for mundane tasks that you complete out of necessity. Would it matter in your job though?
I think we’re trending towards intellectual homogeneity to some extent, where people feel obliged to set aside their unique inklings and put their faith in the machine, thereby elevating their intelligence in sync with the artificial, alongside everyone else…
If everyone is equally reliant on outsourcing their ideas, and therefore is equally capable, what separates individuals besides the specificity of their ChatGPT prompts?
Well, I’d propose:
- Ability to connect, communicate, and collaborate with others
- Capacity to generate new ideas
- Understanding of the human experience
Large language models (LLMs) are curation savants, but they can only draw upon the ideas that humans create and put forward into the world. If we pull the plug on creativity and stop thinking for ourselves, our autonomy stagnates.
With the lessened decision-making burden and increased efficiency that artificial intelligence offers, what do you plan to do with all that extra time?
Since simple tasks can be automated, rather than filling your days with more shallow work, commit to immersion and depth. Leverage technology to find more time for people, to find more time for yourself, and to working on projects that matter. Those are the capabilities AI lacks.
Whilst hype drives people towards tech currently, I suspect that the fallout from AI just a few years from near may lead to resentment, distrust, and a yearning for human connection. AI can solve many problems, but it can’t understand you, nor your uniquely human psyche. If you can preserve your creative ability, understand human problems, and communicate your ideas effectively, you won’t be obsolete.
Although a robot could do it better and quickly than me, I think that analogue, original writing—not mindless curation—cultivates each of these tenets, and ensures the preservation of unique thought.
In that regard, I think writing is an incredible investment—now, and always.
