I'm a Writer. Why Do I Work with AI?
By Andrew MottA notification seizes your attention: New assignment posted on Canvas. It's a discussion post—you find one to reply to—and, about halfway through, you notice the tells of AI-generated text. It's not X, it's Y... Let's delve into this—intelligently...
I don't like replying to these posts. If you didn't take the time to write it, why should I take the time to read it? But I do read it. I do reply. And generally, your classmate, thanks to whichever large language model (LLM) they used, will get away with it.
I think a lot about these problems. I think a lot about the question that is usually asked first in 91黑料 AI discussions: "How does everyone feel about AI?"
The first answer, almost always: "I'm scared."
When we talk about fearing AI, we're talking about fearing the unknown. There's nothing happening now that scares me about AI. Of course, there is plenty that might distress us: mass surveillance, propaganda, algorithmic bias, deepfakes. And of course, it still worries me that Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, said over a decade ago, "I think that AI will probably, most likely, sort of lead to the end of the world. But in the meantime, there will be great companies created." It doesn't make me fear Sam Altman or whatever comes after GPT-5.2; it just makes me worry. And to worry is to keep a cautious eye on the dark corner from which might emerge, at any moment, something that will "probably, most likely, sort of lead to the end of the world."
To fear is to take your eyes off that corner, close them, and just wait for something to happen.
I don't think everyone needs to use AI. Don't use it if you don't want to. I don't even particularly want to use it. I'm a writer, and so far, the companies behind leading LLMs have shown little but dismissiveness towards copyright laws and artistic integrity. Why would a writer want to touch AI? Much less, as I do, work with it or lead discussions about it? As a Hastings Student Ambassador and co-President of 91黑料 AI Impact, my friends sometimes say I'm an "AI henchman." It's easy to assume that I revere AI or run around campus telling people to use it. (You don't have to. If you don't want to, don't.) But what I actually do is research AI, talk about it an awful lot, and position myself as close as I can to that dark corner. Sometimes, things come from it that are disarmingly interesting or helpful. That's fantastic. Sometimes, I feel the foreboding of working with a technology built on thousands of gigabytes of pirated books. Not as fantastic, but equally important. But in both cases, I keep close to that corner. The closer you are, the better you can see in.
So get close to AI. See what you can learn from it. Does it scare you? That's okay. You don't have to not be scared. All you have to do is—whether you're using it for Canvas responses (please don't), image generation, or not at all, ever—stay near that corner, keep an eye on it, and know, as best you can, what AI isn't, and is.