I am scared of AI

I have curated an extensive list of items I desire Gab Waller to acquire for me, and have recently used ChatGPT to scour the web in search of them. At this point, I have a 0% success rate. In my entirely unqualified, barely tech-savvy opinion, Gab, you can breathe easy – your job is safe from the robots, at least for now.

I, on the other hand, have developed a herculean fear that artificial intelligence will shove me out of the job I love with every fibre of my being. However, then I am reminded that there appears to be an evident shift in how people are willing to consume content, and my nerves are settled – until my partner insists on wearing his inside shoes outside. A 2024 report by Columbia Journalism Review noted an upsurge in “media refugees” – readers and writers alike – flocking to newsletters because mainstream platforms no longer offer the depth we crave.

Algorithm fatigue is very much a thing. More and more, people are opting for platforms where they get to pick what – and who – they follow, instead of surrendering to some opaque algorithm. I’m not daft enough to think TikTok is disappearing anytime soon – and honestly, for the sake of my Love Island couple edits (shout out to Grace and Luca), I hope it never does – but the pendulum is definitely swinging toward a more mindful way of consuming media. And that’s a relief, considering the way I fund my shopping habit and pay my rent depends entirely on the written word.

In The Australian editorial by John Warner, he notes: “the challenges of concentrating on text are undermined by a culture where we are expected to spend much more time skimming and assimilating significant volumes of information than we are deeply considering the ideas and concepts in those texts.” In a chapter titled My Digital Doppelgänger, he decided to see what would happen if AI tried to impersonate him – specifically, by having it write a piece on film critics in his own style. He describes feeling “like I’m reading a Stepford version of myself, that says things that are sort of how I might say them, but where the slight resemblance is actually the creepiest part.” But for Warner, writing is a process of uncovering thought as it takes shape on the page. “How do I know what I think until I see what I say?”

Guardian Australia’s analysis of the latest 2024 NAPLAN results revealed that around one-third of students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 are failing to meet minimum literacy standards, including writing and reading. This figure mirrors the outcomes from 2023, suggesting a concerning trend of stagnation in educational performance over the past two years. A statistic directly pertaining to the rising anti‑intellectualism in Australian schools. In a Herald Sun article named ‘Digital amnesia: How AI is dumbing down Aussie kids,’ it was written that “artificial intelligence tools are rewiring Australian students’ brains so much they can’t even remember what they’ve just written.” How fantastic.

Claude Lelouch peotically shared in Criterion Closet, his desire “to make propaganda about things I love.” Imagine that – loving something enough to write about it yourself. These days, if you’re even mildly bored by a subject, you hand it off to a robot. In my professional experience, editorial tends to fall into one of two columns: the first is quality, and the second is fast-paced content you need to plough through to meet a deadline no one will remember. AI has become the intern for our indifference. The minute you stop caring, ChatGPT is right there, ready with 500 words of enthusiasm, no matter how objective you ask it to be. Which is why the old advice – do what you love – has gone from twee to borderline prophetic.

“A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people,” Warner writes. While writing and thinking often go hand in hand, writing also serves as a conduit for expressing feeling. “Making sense of the world is the work of writing.” As language becomes increasingly instant, the time spent labouring over each sentence begins to feel like an act of resistance.

As a writer who has found their most favoured output on Substack, I plead: share your work, your feelings and thoughts with us, with your loved ones, or in the solitude of your journal. One day, you’ll write your vows to a loved one, and I promise to haunt your sleep if they’re generated by AI.