‘Look me in the AI’

FOR the last three years since ChatGPT was introduced, prominent writers, editors and litterateurs have been openly hostile to the idea of AI being able to write fiction, poetry or prose — indeed, any kind of literature. The tech companies that introduced all these LLMs, imagining ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, and Copilot as writing aids, study buddies, collaborators and co-authors, have thrown a nuclear bomb into the literary world, and most of its inhabitants are still in a crouch position, bracing for an impact that detonated back in 2022. But the literary world must call a truce because AI is here to stay. Moreover, any writer who teaches writing, any literary editor or agent who evaluates submissions, any practitioner called upon to judge a literary competition must become AI literate; it’s an unavoidable skill that’s simply part of the job from now on. Last week, the Commonwealth Writing Prize and Granta published five regional short story winners, one of which, Jamir Nazar’s ‘ A Serpent in the Grove ’, was singled out as possibly AI-generated. It raised a furore on social media but it didn’t surprise me at all. I’ve graded hundreds of student essays, judged creative writing capstones and a major Pakistani literary prize in the last year. So much is now written with the help of AI that I feel overwhelmed. I’ve been using the last two years to learn exactly how AI writes — not just its processes, but its style and its voice. I’ve studied it as much as I would study any human author, looking for how it handles dialogue, description, character and plot. Yet if I’d stuck my head in the sand and refused to touch AI for the sake of artistic integrity, I would be letting down all those people who trust my judgement and expertise. Students are addicted to AI not because they want to cheat, but because they’re terrified of looking stupid or inadequate. I spent hours tinkering with AI, asking it to write things in a ...

Original source: Dawn Pakistan