Let’s put our futurist caps on for a moment. It’s 2035, and the New York Times Bestseller list is dominated by AI-generated novels. War and Peace 2.0 by GPT-10 is the most talked-about book of the year, lauded for its “emotional depth” and “stunning insight into the human condition.” Meanwhile, human writers everywhere drown their sorrows in overpriced lattes, wondering where it all went wrong.
So, could this be our future as creatives: a dystopia where robots not only steal our jobs, but even write better stories than we ever could? It’s almost laughable that a bundle of circuits and code could one day outshine the likes of Shakespeare, Hemingway, or even Stephen King. But, in a world where AI can already compose symphonies, diagnose diseases, and even flirt with us in chatrooms, maybe it’s not as far-fetched as we’d like to think. After all, if a machine can make us swoon with a well-placed compliment, who’s to say it can’t pen the next great American novel?
Thus, here we are asking the question that no sane person going into 2025 should have to ask: “Could AI writers one day surpass human writers?” Let’s examine the cultural, philosophical, and scientific underpinnings of a future where your favorite author soon might just be an NVIDIA powered chatbot. Along the way, it’s likely we discover that the answer to this question isn’t just about technology, but about what it means to be human in an increasingly automated world. If nothing else, we can at least enjoy a good laugh at the sheer absurdity of AI one day becoming our Literary Overlords.
The Rise of AI in Creative Fields
Clearly, AI isn’t just the stuff of science fiction anymore; it’s the new golden child of Silicon Valley, here to disrupt everything from your social media feed to your bookshelf. Remember when writing used to be about blood, sweat, and tears? Now, it’s more about feeding an algorithm a few million words and hoping it spits out something that resembles a coherent sentence. Who knew that imitating human creativity with lines of code would become the next big thing?
Pop culture hasn’t missed a beat in capitalizing on this trend, painting AI as both our creative savior and our inevitable downfall. Take “Her,” for example, where an AI becomes so emotionally attuned that it not only writes love letters better than any human could, but it also makes you question why you’re still single. Or the HBO series “Westworld,” based on the now half-century old Michael Crichton film, where AI creations become so advanced they start questioning their own existence — because nothing says “I’m a real artist” like an existential crisis in binary.
But it’s not just Hollywood getting in on the action. AI-generated content is seeping into every corner of mass media. From news articles that sound suspiciously robotic to poetry that’s somehow both soulless and pretentious, it seems AI is determined to prove it can do everything we can, only better and without the need for coffee breaks. Of course, it’s doing at best a pale imitation, and at worst, making a mockery of the English language and our collective intelligence.
Even the literary world isn’t safe; AI has already churned out novels that have made Amazon Kindle bestsellers lists. But these aren’t so much masterpieces as they are curiosities. (Notably, the Vice article I linked to is a Web Archive version, as the original was pulled down for some reason.) After all, we humans love a good train-wreck. Sure, they may lack the warmth and subtlety of human-authored works. But hey, at least they don’t come with the baggage of a tortured artist.
The public’s reaction to the AI invasion is a delightful cocktail of awe, fear, and resignation. Sure, we marvel at technology’s capabilities. But who wouldn’t be impressed by a machine that can write an entire screenplay in the time it takes us to figure out how to end a sentence? On the other hand, it’s easy to be overcome by the undercurrents of impending doom and dread of circuits replacing real human work. After all, if an AI can write a bestseller, even if it’s just an algorithmic quirk, what’s stopping it from taking over every other creative industry? Today, it’s writing novels; tomorrow, it’s designing fashion lines and composing symphonies. Maybe by next week, it’ll be hosting its own talk show. (Actually, it’s kind of already doing this with NotebookLM, but I digress.)
But let’s not get too carried away. While AI might be muscling in on the creative turf, there’s still something distinctly human about the act of creation. Thus far, that’s something that even the most advanced algorithms can’t quite replicate but only emulate. At least, this is what we keep telling ourselves as we frantically try to prove our worth in a world that seems increasingly eager to replace us with machines.
So, as we ponder whether AI will eventually surpass us, let’s appreciate the great irony here. The very thing we created to serve us might just be the one thing that renders us obsolete. If that isn’t a classic tragedy on its own, I don’t know what is.
What Does It Mean to Create?
In the “good ole days,” creativity was the domain of muses, divine inspiration, and of course, an unhealthy dose of existential angst. Now, in our brave new world, creativity is apparently something you can code, download, and update every so often with bug fixes. Soon, we’ll be saying quite unironically that nothing says “artistic genius” quite like a software patch.
Philosophers have spent centuries debating what makes someone, or in this case, something creative. Is it an ability to conjure something out of nothing? Could it be a knack for expressing the ineffable through words, images, or music? Maybe it’s just the sheer audacity to think anyone else would care about what’s rattling around in your brain. Whatever it is, to this point, it’s been something uniquely human.
Now, we’re faced with the rather absurd prospect of machines that “create” just as we do. But can an algorithm truly be creative? Or is it just great at faking it? After all, AI doesn’t have thoughts, feelings, or even a favorite color. It doesn’t wake up in the middle of the night with a burning need to jot down a poem about lost love or the meaning of life. It doesn’t agonize over word choice, wonder if it’s good enough for snuff, or dread inevitable rejection. No, it just crunches data, identifies patterns, and produces output that sometimes, if we squint hard enough, looks like something a human might have made.
Also, AI doesn’t have its own intentions or emotions, the secret sauce of true creativity. When a human writes, a whole mess of emotions, experiences, and intentions lies behind every word. Whether written in a heartfelt love letter or a passive-aggressive email to a coworker, there’s something deeply personal about it. Meanwhile, AI has the emotional depth of a toaster. Sure, it can string together sentences that sound emotional. But does it understand what it means to love, grieve, or long for something unattainable? No, it doesn’t — at least not yet.
The human experience is wild and unpredictable, a rollercoaster ride full of joy, sorrow, confusion, and sometimes just plain weirdness. These experiences fuel our organic creativity, giving rise to stories, art, and music that allow us to connect with audiences on a deeply personal level. But lacking any experience beyond what it’s been trained on, AI simply can’t tap into that wellspring of humanity. It might be able to simulate emotion through pattern recognition, but it can’t truly understand it.
This is where things get really interesting, or depressing, depending on your perspective. If AI can’t feel or experience life like we do, can it ever truly create something meaningful? Or is it doomed to be nothing more than a very sophisticated parrot, imitating what it’s heard with no real understanding or intention behind it? This is a philosophical conundrum, for sure. The obvious answer is that the truth is the latter, but the output will eventually become so well-dressed that most people won’t be able to tell the differences. Therein lies the major issue: when will human creatives simply become not worth the bother versus what can be instantly synthesized out of all that came before?
Creativity is about more than just putting words on a page or notes on a staff. Creative works involve expressing something deep and true, something relatable to others because it’s born out of the messy, chaotic, beautiful experience of being alive. That’s something that no large language model, no machine we have to this point, can ever truly replicate. But hey, it can try, and we can all enjoy the spectacle of it fumbling around in the metaphysical dark.
The Mechanics of AI Writing
Now, how exactly does an AI writer work? Well, if you imagine a tiny robot with a smart quill and a penchant for existential poetry, I hate to disappoint you. The truth is far less glamorous and much nerdier. It starts with a giant pile of data — think all the books, articles, and tweets you’ve ever read and the countless more you haven’t. Now, take this mountain of human expression and feed it to a machine that’s essentially a very fast, and efficient regurgitation machine. AI writing isn’t so much creating as it is remixing, like a DJ at a party who keeps hitting ‘shuffle’ on someone else’s playlist they snagged from Spotify suggestions.
For example, GPT-4o is just a massive statistical model trained to recognize patterns in language. It’s read more words than you ever will in your entire life, which, frankly, is both impressive and rather creepy. It takes this vast reservoir of text and finds patterns, like how certain words tend to follow others. Then, it uses that information to predict what should come next in a sentence. It’s like predictive text on your phone, except instead of just guessing the next word, it’s guessing the next sentence, paragraph, or even chapter. Yes, sometimes it makes about as much sense as those auto-generated YouTube comments, but other times, it can produce serviceable prose.
Still, AI isn’t exactly winning any creativity contests just yet. At its very best, it’s still derivative, even if its key influences aren’t at first obvious. Sure, it can spit out an essay, a poem, or even a short story, but it’s still got a few quirks. For one, it tends to repeat itself. It’s like, “I’ve already said this, but it sounds profound, so here it is again.”
Then, there’s the matter of context. AI often struggles with understanding the big picture, like a goldfish trying to comprehend the concept of the ocean. It might know that Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, of course. But if you ask it to explain the existential crisis at the heart of the play, it’ll probably just hand you a synopsis that’s about as deep as a kiddie pool. Or more likely, it will just search its vast databank for Shakespeare critical writings of the past forever and stitch them together to sound like a PhD in English Literature wrote it in their sleep.
But in the future, AI will get better, at least in fooling us more often. How will it understand context, develop a sense of realistic narrative, or perhaps, even come up with something original? The short answer is to these aspects, and more, is that we don’t know yet. AI is improving all the time, so win a few years, it might be able to write something that not only makes sense but also makes you feel something. Here’s the catch: even if AI does get better at faking creativity, it’ll still be just that. An AI tool is still just a machine following instructions, no matter how sophisticated those instructions might be.
There’s also the question of innovation. Humans are inherently unpredictable. We come up with ideas that are completely out of left field, not because we’re programmed to, but because we’re inspired by our experiences, emotions, and sometimes honest-to-God sheer randomness. In the meantime, AI can be only as innovative as the data it’s been fed. It can remix, rehash, and repack all it wants, Still, true innovation is still very much a human domain — at least for now. Even then, the best AI can do is put things together in new and unusual ways, which at first blush might look “creative.” But it’s just fancy smoke and mirrors effects that might fool us into thinking we’re looking at something brand new.
So, while AI writing might be impressive, it’s still a far cry from the real thing. It’s like comparing a paint-by-numbers kit to a Van Gogh — sure, they both use paint, but only one of them was created by a person who truly understood the beauty and tragedy of the world around them. AI might eventually learn to mimic creativity more convincingly, but the spark that makes something truly original is something even the most impressive algorithm can’t replicate. At least, we aren’t there yet, and honestly, I’m not sure I want to ever get to that point.
For quite some time, we’ll likely continue to watch in bemusement as AI continues its awkward, sometimes adorable stabs at creativity. It will stumble often and trip over its own code in hilarious ways. Still, even now AI is coming up with things that make us pause and think, “Huh, not bad for a bunch of ones and zeros.” Well, if we’re not careful, we might all be too busy sipping lattes while reading AI-generated novels, all the while wondering if we should have seen this coming.
Why Human Writers Should Always Have the Edge
AI might be the new shiny toy in the creative sandbox, but when it comes to writing, we human beings still have a little thing called the human experience. Sure, AI can cobble together a halfway decent sonnet or churn out an outline for a passable thriller. But without the blood, sweat, and neurosis that come with being a real, live person, it’s just not the same. Heck, would you trust a robot to write your memoir? Probably not.
We humans are messy, emotional, and gloriously irrational. We draw from our personal experiences — the heartbreaks, the triumphs, the time we accidentally replied-all to the entire office with that embarrassing typo — to create stories that connect on a deep, often unspoken level. AI doesn’t have experiences, per se. It doesn’t know what it’s like to fall in love, lose a loved one, or binge-watch an entire season of a show out of sheer boredom. It’s like trying to explain color to a creature that’s never seen anything but grayscale — it just doesn’t get it.
Human writers infuse our work with emotion and nuance. We don’t just tell you that a character is sad; we show you through their trembling hands, their hollow eyes, the way they stare out of the rain-streaked window like a forlorn character in a noir film. AI might tell you someone is sad too, but it’ll probably do it with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. It’s not that AI can’t describe emotions — it’s that it doesn’t feel them, and it shows. Even if you carefully prompt it to “show don’t tell,” it’s going to be only convincing at a surface-level.
Then, there’s the matter of perspective. Every human writer brings their own unique viewpoint to the table, shaped by their background, culture, and personal experiences. Perspective is what makes literature so rich and varied. An AI, by contrast, doesn’t have a perspective; it has only data. It’s like trying to have a deep, philosophical conversation with your microwave: sure, it might repeat back some things it’s heard before, but don’t expect it to have an original thought on the matter.
Still, perhaps the biggest reason human writers might always have the edge is that we’re just plain unpredictable. We come up with ideas that no algorithm could ever dream up. As yet, even if we simulate dreaming through endless machine learning routines, algorithms don’t dream like people do. We humans are constantly surprising ourselves, coming up with wild, unexpected stories that challenge the status quo and push the boundaries of what’s possible. Humans aren’t bound by logic or reason; we’re fueled by curiosity, passion, and, sometimes, a healthy dose of insanity. Meanwhile, in its quest for perfection, AI lacks that creative spark. It’s like trying to teach your cat to play the piano — sure, it might hit a few notes just write, but it’ll never compose a memorable concerto.
But let’s not forget one crucial point: AI is a tool, not a replacement. It’s here to help us, not take over. Just as a painter uses a brush or a sculptor uses a chisel, writers can use AI to enhance our creativity through brainstorming sessions and helping us exercise our writing skills whenever we’re feeling rusty. It’s like having an assistant who never gets tired and never needs a break. It never complains about your obscure writing references because it’s almost always aware of them. At the end of the day, though, the creative vision — what makes the story worth telling — comes from the human writer. AI doesn’t prompt itself, at least not yet.
So, while AI might be good for cranking out cheap surface-level content, it’s our human element that gives writing its soul. We bring the nuance, the emotion, the perspective, and the unpredictability that no machine can replicate. As long as we keep embracing those qualities, AI will remain what it’s always been: a fascinating, powerful tool that’s great for helping us put pieces together to tell better stories but should never be allowed to become the storyteller itself.
Honestly, do we really want to live in a world where robots write all our books? That could mean a future where every novel ends with, “And they lived logically ever after,” and every poem is a haiku about efficiency or epics full of logic puzzles. No, thanks. If we humans keep being our wonderfully chaotic, irrational selves, there will always be a place for us in the literary world. AI must remain our assistants, who can keep handling the boring stuff, like spelling, grammar, and perhaps even canned humor if we need a chuckle after a long, hard day.
How to Navigate the Growth of AI as a Writer
So, if you made it this far, you’re likely asking, “What am I supposed to do with all this? How do I survive in a world where AI is trying to steal my writing gig?” Well, fear not, my fellow humans — there’s still plenty you can do to keep the machines in their place and your creativity intact. Let’s dive into some actionable advice.
Play With AI (But Don’t Let It Take Over Your Life)
First things first, don’t fight the future. AI is here to stay. Think of AI as an overachieving coworker who’s always trying to do everything faster and better, but with the emotional intelligence of an always wilting houseplant. Instead of resenting it, use AI to your advantage.
If you need help brainstorming ideas, let AI throw some random concepts your way. Just don’t let it write your magnum opus and tell you about how this is a testament for this. Above all, don’t allow the events of your life to weave a brilliant tapestry. Use AI writers as a tool to jumpstart your creativity, not as a replacement or even a crutch for your own brilliant mind.
Double Down on the Human Element
AI can mimic human writing pretty well, but it can’t replicate your unique voice and perspective. You, my friend, are a one-of-a-kind, slightly flawed, gloriously complex human being. Lean into that. Write with your own voice, quirks, and style. Authentic, messy humanity is your secret weapon in this digital age, so wield it like a pen-shaped lightsaber. Readers can tell the difference between a heartfelt piece and something churned out by a glorified spellchecker.
Stay Curious and Keep Learning
AI might be good at processing information, but it doesn’t have the curiosity that drives human creativity. This means you must stay curious, perhaps to the point of obsession! Constantly explore new topics and dive into obscure subjects. The more knowledge and experiences you accumulate, the more fuel for your writing. AI can only rehash what it’s been fed. You, meanwhile, can connect dots in ways no algorithm ever could. Keep feeding your brain, and it’ll keep rewarding you with ideas that AI could only dream of — if it could properly dream, that is.
Collaborate, Don’t Compete
Think of AI as a collaborator, not a competitor. Use it to handle the grunt work, like proofreading, outlining, or even generating rough drafts. Then, swoop in with your human touch to refine, add depth, and breathe life into the text. It’s like being the director of a movie where AI is the assistant who handles the boring stuff, while you focus on the artistry.
Protect Your Creative Space
AI might be efficient, but it’s also relentless. It doesn’t need sleep, want to Netflix and chill, or have unscheduled existential crises, which means it can churn out content 24/7/365. Don’t fall into the trap of trying to keep up with the machines. Rather, protect your own creative space — take breaks, step away from the screen, maybe touch grass, and let your mind wander.
Human creativity thrives best in moments of quiet reflection and aimless daydreaming. No matter how advanced it becomes, this is something AI will never understand. Remember, you’re not a content machine; you’re a human with a creative spirit that needs time to recharge.
Closing Thoughts
As AI knocks on the door of creative pursuits, it’s easy to feel a little intimidated or perhaps even a little doomed. Sure, AI might be able to write passable copy, but it will never be able to truly create in the way humans do. It lacks the beautiful mess of the human mind, those experiences that shape us, and the emotions that drive us to tell our stories in the first place.
Still, we must acknowledge the absurdity of what humanity has accomplished with AI large language models. We’ve spent centuries perfecting the art of storytelling, only to hand it over to a bunch of ones and zeros and say, “Here, you try.” It’s like teaching your pet parrot to recite Shakespeare. Sure, it may be impressive when it gets a few lines right, but you’re not going to take its performance of Hamlet seriously.
The idea that AI could one day surpass human writers is both laughable and terrifying, like a clown with a chainsaw: you’re not sure whether to laugh, run, or do both at the same time. But AI isn’t going anywhere. It’s going to keep getting better, faster, and possibly more pretentious. After all, if there’s one thing AI excels at, it’s mimicking our worst tendencies.
So, how will we learn to coexist with our digital doppelgängers? We likely can’t outpace the machines in quantity of output. Rather our job should be to focus more than ever on quality and each other’s humanity. We must own our flaws and quirks, keeping our unique perspectives at the heart of the matter. Let AI handle some tedious stuff, but never lose sight of the fact that the stories worth telling are the ones only we can tell.
While the future of writing will no doubt include AI as a key contributor, it shouldn’t be defined by it. No matter how many data points it processes, AI will never replace the human spirit. So, write with the confidence that your humanity is your greatest asset in a world of cold, calculating machines. It will shine through, like diamonds in the coal.
In the grand scheme of things, the rise of AI in creative fields might just be the kick in the pants we need to push our own creativity further. After all, there’s nothing like a little competition to make us step up our game. Yet, it’s not a competition in the traditional sense, because no matter how advanced AI becomes, it will always lack that special something only humans have.
So, what’s the takeaway here? You can use AI as a tool, but don’t let it define you or your work. Most importantly, don’t lose sight of the fact that the stories worth telling are the ones that come from the heart, not from a machine learning algorithm. The future of writing won’t be about choosing between AI and human creativity. It’ll be determined by how we choose blend the two, using technology to enhance our storytelling while staying true to the unique perspectives and experiences that only we, as humans, can bring to the table.
~ Amelia Desertsong
