There is a laughable proposition that has recently surfaced, laughable especially in the composing of fiction…if not in every other kind of writing.
“Artificial Intelligence” has also been named…by Noam Chomsky, no less…as “Plagiarism Software.” This is a much more accurate term since it recognizes clearly the sources of all artificial intelligence…the entirety of which comes from the many millions of human beings who have put pencil to paper to compose (quill to parchment, or fingers to typewriters, to computer keyboards…whatever) . So, “AI” uses as a base for its own composition the written efforts of countless individual writers who have existed since time immemorial.
Thus, instead of clear ideas, pondered by an individually bright human mind and expressed with clarity and taste, with “AI” you have a hodgepodge of various sentences or phrases, many in conflict with many others, that gathered together are expressed with contradictory confusion, put together by a thoroughly un-human gathering process that has no specific idea of how to tell a story, how to set a scene, how to present a hero and a villain, how to offer original thoughts on love, ill manners, worry, death, grateful thanks, the arrival of one’s self-awareness, political strife, the frightful waste of war, the end of love, the worry for children, the sense of what it’s like to swim in the ocean, to ride a bike, offer a kiss, feel betrayed, to rob a bank, to dance a tango, to be killed, to be born, to nurture…. And most other events or feelings that affect the human heart, which is to say, all events and feelings.
The very suggestion that “AI” could handle such a task is worthy of laughter, while the evidence that individual humans are up to the task has been crystal clear throughout the millennia before “AI” ever came about…that would be two or three years ago. So, if you are someone involved in any sort of creative endeavor, you have little to worry about. Keep writing. “AI” will stagger along far behind, confused by everything and offering further muddled drivel as its signal result.
Copyright © 2025 Terence Clarke. All rights reserved.
Note: No Plagiarism Software, also known as Artificial Intelligence, was used in the composition of this piece.
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