ChatGPT is a Pantry without a Cook

By Pamela Gullard, Senior Adjunct Professor of Literature

For a month I told myself I wouldn’t write an article in defense of human-generated writing. When I started to think about what I would say, I’d stop myself. No, you don’t have time for this. No one wants your opinion. You’re not an expert in this field. Then late one night, I started to write. This is the way humans work—in a mess, with thoughts at cross-purposes, contradictions galore. The way AI works? Cleanly, creating a draft on command (no second, third, or thirty-first draft). AI-written products are grammatical, logical (mostly), and easy to digest. But AI cannot create the line, “O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” expressing the anguish of a teenager facing the unholy social restrictions on her enormous, pure love. She stands in the ancient dilemma between the political and the individual, crying out in favor of happiness. As we sit in the audience, we drink in her defense of joy with both our minds and our hearts.

AI creates pretty good writing. We’re burying ourselves in pretty good writing. I want brilliance, or at least something with a spark that’s worth reading. I’ve heard students, business managers, and even people who make a living as writers explain that AI is good for generating ideas. The problem is that those ideas come to our screens with no point of view. AI is neutral. One “idea” is as good as the next, as long as each idea can be strung together with another that seems to be in the same ballpark. The messy part of creating a worthwhile piece is pulled out from under our feet before we even get started.

My point of view is the most precious thing I have—it’s built from all the mornings I’ve walked out in my bare feet to greet the cat, my 3-year struggle with a thesis on ritualized behavior, the afternoon I couldn’t comfort my broken-hearted son. If Shakespeare used ChatGPT, he could have found other works of art about falling in love and used those works to write a pretty good play of his own. I don’t want that play. I don’t want another TV sitcom written solely by committee. I want Dan Levy’s Schitt’s Creek, the cutting edge of All in the Family, and also the deep smolder of Invisible Man or, more recently, of A Visit from the Goon Squad, works where I can feel the thump of one person’s hard-won, human point of view.