On the Use of AI
“Hope” is the thing with feathers —
That perches in the soul —
And sings the tune without the words —
And never stops — at all —And sweetest — in the Gale — is heard —
And sore must be the storm —
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm —I’ve heard it in the chillest land —Emily Dickinson Text from the manuscript, Fascicle 13, Houghton Library.
And on the strangest Sea —
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb — of Me.
It is a little-known fact that Emily Dickinson, in addition to her ostensible writing profession, was a time traveler who, finding herself in the twenty-first century, utilized artificial intelligence in the composition of her poems. The evidence? Thirteen em dashes across twelve lines of poetry. If only she had used a colon or two and a couple of antithesis–thesis pairs (“It’s not that hope is X; it’s that hope is Y”), our prima facie case would have yielded an unquestionable verdict on the question of authorship: “She did it! Her hands are stained red.”
But if her hands are red, it’s certainly not because she used artificial intelligence; it’s because of the ink of her pen. Wait, that was an antithesis–thesis pair. Did I use AI?
The stylistic features common to AI-generated prose — em dashes and colons and antithesis–thesis pairs, among others — do not by themselves establish the use of artificial intelligence. In fact, even thirteen recurrences of a single one of those features are insufficient for such an inference. So what is the problem with AI-generated text? It’s boring. But the tediousness of reading AI-generated prose comes not from its content but from the recurrent, indiscriminate application of those same features and, more seriously, from the absence of a voice whose sound reflects the work done in its composition. (I did it again!)
There’s no need, however, to throw the baby out with the bathwater. You may write your thoughts hastily and sloppily into an AI prompt. It cares little for your spelling errors and will readily correct them. You may ask it questions and have it challenge your ideas. In fact, you are not alone in its use.
There’s a running joke in The Big Bang Theory. Sheldon Cooper, the genius physicist and arguably central character of the show, is not shy about his disdain for geology. Toward the end of the series, in one episode, Sheldon, after being approached by Bert, a leading geologist at Caltech, to collaborate on a research project, feigns indifference. Physics, according to Sheldon, examines the nature of the universe; geology, on the other hand, answers the question: What did I just trip over? But Sheldon did want to work with Bert, went to great lengths to conceal his collaboration, and, after being dismissed from the project, desired to return to it.
Many of your teachers use AI; so do many of the professors from whom you will learn. Some of them surrender their judgment to detection software, oblivious to the grounds on which those fateful verdicts are issued, as they question your activity in the composition of work that is your own. The pot does like to call the kettle black. AI is the geologist no physicist wishes to acknowledge as a meaningful collaborator.
Do I use AI? Yes. How? That’s the question that matters.
Suppose I claim that Emily Dickinson was a time-traveling con artist, a fake and a fraud, a phony — that her work was AI-generated. The claim is false, and had I, were I in a position to do so, silenced the expression of any opposition to that view, I would have robbed myself of the opportunity for correction. Suppose instead that I were right, and that the powers that be, for fear of repercussions, silenced me. What would you have lost?
John Stuart Mill, in On Liberty, argued that the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is theft. Existing and future generations are robbed; those who are wrong lose the opportunity to exchange error for truth; those who are right lose “the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.” I use AI to challenge my ideas, to indicate inconsistencies that lie in the shadows of my own thinking, to buttress my own positions when, not seldom, I recognize errors in its own. Judgment and voice always remain mine.
But ask yourself: Did I choose those words? Why are they there? Am I the person behind the text? AI may generate a false account of your life, and you may vigorously defend every claim in it. But what an unfortunate waste of tenacity would that be! And AI may also take an account, true and your own, and express it in words you never chose. The claim may be yours, but the artistry is not. That may be cheap in an ordinary email; in a personal statement, where the hand that drew the image matters as much as the image itself, it is theft. Yourself you will have robbed of the opportunity for a rendering honest, and your reader of the chance to see you through your own words. What he receives instead is a forgery. You may understand and defend every word of a text without having written it.
That which AI cannot do is speak for you. It will work with that which you give it, and no one sees everything.
Ms. Elisabeth and I will not write for you. We will, however, meaningfully inform the composition of your work. We look upon your history from a standpoint not your own, informed by our lived experience, our work with other students, and our practice as writers. We may recognize in it patterns that you yourself have not yet come to notice. We will bring them to your attention; whether we have seen rightly is for you to judge. Nor will we ask you to pour your history into the cookie-cutter forms that your schooling may have impressed upon you as the proper way to write. We will not replace one formula with another. The structure must unfold from the experience, as the experience calls for it. We may question your interpretation and your expression, but the judgment and the words must remain yours.
Use em dashes if your voice calls for them. Emily Dickinson did; some of the best writers have and do. I do. When the work is your own, you will know it, and you can defend it. So, too, will you know when it isn’t.