I use AI to aid in writing- get over it
One thing that all humans share is an instinct to punishment. This punishment can come in the form of extreme violence, such as burning someone at the stake for being a witch, and it can take the form of something much more benign- like gate keeping and elitism. All are forms of punishment.
In order to punish, there requires in the most healthy of humans a set of conditions to be present that wipes their hands of blame for their innate instinct to punish. Neurology informs us that the human mind is made up of several different operating systems working in concert. When the instinct to punish aligns with a credible social narrative for the WHY someone has felt it safe to openly punish and cheer its application , they will be capable of incredible cruelty. This is the god of the Old Testament at work. Applied in the modern context it’s “Eye for an AI.”
No matter what science tells us about the mind, these advances in understanding our nature will not change us fundamentally as a species. Why, some of the best among us have ancestors who showed up to every public execution and cheered as the heads were lopped off. It was okay- the executed were not covered by any amount of considerations relied upon by humanity at its finest to award compassion or pity. They got what they deserved and your ancestor? They baked a mean loaf of bread with only the tiniest amounts of plaster of Paris to fill it out. Solid blokes.
For the sake of this piece, I’ve decided to take the time to not use AI whatsoever. Ive also decided to put this admission later in the piece because I want to prove that people, by and large, will not read this far because they lack the ability to do so. But if you’ve made it this far please look at the opening sequence. Does it still look like AI now that I’ve informed you it isn’t? Can you detect the human touch as well as you can AI? Would you even know humanity if it was talking directly to you?
Further to the point of chosing to not use AI- in order to even understand what that means, and in practical terms in a user case such as mine, one must have a creative process of their very own to compare with those of others. If you don’t even so much as possess a robust process, then you won’t really grasp if subterfuge is occuring through the use of the modern LLM tools. Not that that will matter much to you, most likely, because you’re not there to engage with ideas requiring deep thought. Your instinct is to sniff out and find an excuse to punish and commonly that is why you’re reading. maybe you're a serial AI punisher, going from thread to thread, never affected by any idea, but only getting dopamine by announcing you’ve detected the use of AI. Go witch hunter, go! Youre doing gods work!
As an artist, I have not led with statistics, but rather, abstract associations and language meant to evoke scenes and settings in the readers mind to achieve my goal of writing this piece.
That said, you must understand something- AI cannot do that in the way I now communicate. And you wouldn’t desire it otherwise. A large language model can make writing more accessible because it homogenizes syntax and vernacular. Already, from the way I have written this, there are certain calling cards of my unique and specific region of origin, experiences, and socioeconomic background. This could make it harder to follow if you’re not from my specific area of the English speaking world. But AI can’t make up story beats that are feverish and intentional. it can’t make up turns of phrase that connect seemingly unconnected concepts. It cant write you a story anyone will want to read. But it can take story beats and employ your own rhetorical devices into a more accessible form that best mirrors the entirety of what you already are fed daily by the corporate magazines and news stories have shifted your baseline understanding of what good writing is.
the concept and Intention must remain human to realize the power of the tools. To conceive of something, as Ive conceived this imperitive to rebut the new incarnation of the town square beheading, can only be derived from thought.
And here, in forums such as Reddit,we find, time and again, the most mundane and uncommunicative minds among us barely being able to tolerate authoring a comment longer than “you used ai”. that’s all the effort they had to use to get their dopamine to drip feed them.
Think of that for a moment. What faculties or wonders of the human mind are you championing to object to someone’s use of AI when you yourself are so over bored and over stimulated that you spend the least amount of cognitive energy to punish someone else? Just because someone’s cognition may not be impressive enough to brute force and manual labor out a piece for you to skim as you’re on your toilet doom scrolling, doesn’t mean that you yourself possess a remarkable human mind. And before you even know the WHAT you want to pose as your reasonable objection in reaction to this accusation , you’d likely have to crowdsource a valid point to make originating from someone more thoughtful than yourself so that you still achieve your dopamine.
It is 2026 and You’re likely already fooled, or will be in time, by AI generated videos. Stop feasting on that cheap dopamine and figure out what you have to say to the human race for yourself. Whatever it takes to get your message across is acceptable as long as it adds to our greater collective of understanding.
now I’d like to point out the pure lunacy of the modern and lazy position-
Every published work you have ever read was submitted to an editor who took the breadth of IDEAS presented to them and cut and arranged them. But the authors name is on the book isn’t it? spellcheck, Microsoft word, grammerly etc etc all alter your writing and have done so for decades. And yes, if you didn’t, the grammar Nazis came for you didn’t they? expending very little energy to punish you for mistaking “your” and “you’re”.
again chasing that dopamine high.
History informs us that the witch hunter provided no service to society- made no good that fed, that nourished the body or soul. The executioner was no more than a human axe with nothing to contribute. just a dumb brute raising his violence over head and bellowing “you used AI”.
And if you’ve made it this far I must congratulate you on your endurance! You’ve displayed some real cognitive stamina to actually interact with human mind as it speaks to you in its own earned vernacular and idiosyncrasies. If this is what people most craved, then it’s what would still be for sale in magazines like VICE. But metrics have already informed us what audiences like, and it ain’t THIS. The human voice is not what people want. And it’s not what sales. The first thing that would need to happen for this piece to reach a large readership is all friction to be removed to make it accessible as possible. I would need an editor on retainer… or perhaps a LLM.
Because for gods sake, wouldn’t want to exhaust anyone!
oh, and did you note the mocking tone I employed? That’s my instinct to punish at work.
*written on an iPhone over the course of an hour