What Happens to Creativity When AI Disappears? Writers Speak Out.

I am in mourning. There is a deep grief that I’m trying to make sense of tied to AI’s impact on something I hold so precious. On writing.

I was in the shower, doing what one does in the shower, when those words rushed out of my consciousness so unexpectedly that I knew that they needed to be handled with care. So, I ran out of the bathroom to log them. Then proceeded to sit on my bed, skin wet, as I spoke into my phone — talk-to-text going ham as I used the same technology I was speaking ill of to capture my fury of thoughts.

Writers find themselves in this place often. A seed of an idea — a fragmented thought, a piece of dialogue, a string of sentences — takes root in the most inconvenient of places. Showers are the birthplace of many, of course, but so are walks, half-sleeps, yoga savasanas, 10,000 feet above ground on a plane. If we’re lucky, we log the idea before it slips away, but we all know the pain that comes when it untethers prematurely.

I spent many years either ignoring the seeds that came my way or doing little to ensure they took root. While the breadcrumbs of writing track back to grade school, it took me until a global pandemic, when I was well into my thirties, to start taking my craft seriously. Then, temporarily in my childhood home, I found my way back to writing. First, by publishing here on Medium, before branching out to blogs, Substack, scripts, and speeches.

After five years of writing, I’m not sure it’s gotten any easier, but I believe I’ve gotten better. I know quick fixes to enhance a piece — alliteration, a mix of short and longer sentences, metaphors, that kind of thing. I have an understanding of my unique voice — as annoyingly hopeful or deviously cutting as it may be. I’ve become less precious about perfect sentences that, upon a second read, take the reader out of the story.

In another universe, I would be proud of these hard-earned skills. Yet, not in the era of Artificial Intelligence.

I work as a speechwriter for a major technology company. This work first exposed me to AI when I was tasked with writing about the rich opportunities that…