Now the oatmeal writes itself.
And everyone’s shocked.
There’s also this quiet panic underneath the conversation: this
need to draw a hard line and say, “This is human. That is machine.” As if the
label alone guarantees meaning.
But readers don’t experience writing that way. They never
have.
They read something and think:
- Did this hold my attention?
- Did it give me something?
- Was it worth the minutes it took from my life?
That’s it. No moral philosophy attached.
Which is why this whole debate feels slightly off. We’re
arguing about authorship like it’s the main ingredient, when most readers are
just deciding if the meal tasted good.
Still, I don’t think this means writing is dead or that human voice doesn’t matter. If anything, it matters more … but in a narrower, sharper way. Because now there’s no hiding in competence.
If all you’re doing is writing clearly structured, perfectly
fine sentences, you’re competing with something that can do that instantly,
endlessly, without getting bored or needing coffee.
So the question shifts. Not “Can you write?” But “Do you have anything to say that isn’t interchangeable?”
That’s a harder question. And a more interesting one.
I find myself less defensive about AI than I expected. Maybe because it’s exposing something we’ve been avoiding: a lot of writing wasn’t as uniquely human as we claimed. It was just… adequate. And adequacy has a new competitor.
So no, I don’t particularly care if something was written by
a person or a machine ... at least not at first glance.
I care if it makes me pause. If it nudges my thinking a few
degrees off center. If it feels like someone, somewhere, actually meant it.
And that’s the part I’m not convinced can be automated.
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