My habit is quaint, I know, and there are downsides – but for those who value literature, the focus will shift to this: how do we prove we didn’t use AI?
When I was very young, three or four, before I learned to write, I’d search out empty pages in my father’s thin, hardbound ledgers and out-of-date diaries, and scribble from left to right. I would sit them on an angled louvre, the humid Brisbane air drifting in, and play at writing.
I think I derive some pleasure in the friction of pencil on paper itself, surfing the feint-ruled lines. There is electricity – lightning, back through memoir – that links to my early tactile sense of the world. Perhaps, eventually, we’ll be able to see AI for what it is and take solace in human traces – an interest in process and practice will deepen. This is happening already, but there’ll be more focus on the open studio or the singular, lifelong accumulation of skill and intelligence of any artist, musician or writer – something AI lacks. A painter slowly perfecting a subtle un-mimicable line via studies or works-in-progress.
