Oh, Martha, where to start?? I could probably be here all day going from point to point in this most wonderful essay of yours, but I'm just going to stick with honesty. What is it? How does it manifest when we're writing all alone and nobody else is watching? I don't use AI and probably won't ever, but I ask myself often while I'm writing in first person personal, am I'm using language that manipulates, along with telling the story?
I know that kind of manipulation when I see it in others, but do I see it in myself? And is it all bad? What is manipulation if not a method of convincing? And isn't that the basis for all of our personal pieces? Convincing our readers that this is the real US? We work to move words around in a way that will make our readers care. Moving words around. Manipulating.
I think there are so many gray areas when it comes to honesty and authenticity. I think if we question it too much it might mean we're making too much of it. Maybe we should just embrace the persona we're trying to create. Make it the real us.
I think of entertainers like Lady Gaga and Madonna, who are far from 'real' but are nonetheless captivating. They change their persona at will or at whim, and their audiences love that feeling of imbalance. It's their mystique. (Well, maybe not Madonna's anymore.)
I love Maxfield Parrish prints. I mean, "love" isn't an exaggeration. I spent years swooning over them, and then I discovered late into my love affair that his gorgeous 'paintings' are actually photographs manipulated with paint to take on that amazing light. He didn't paint those figures, he posed them on sets of his choosing, photographed them, and then painted the highlights. Did knowing that make me love his work even less? A little. But they're still breathtaking. That's the difference with AI. His prints are wholly his signature. They couldn't have come from anyone else.
Andy Warhol did sort of the same thing, except he did it by screen-printing over already famous photographs. That feels like AI to me. Warhol made millions by dinking us.
There are artists like Andrew Wyeth and Edward Hopper who keep it real almost to the point of everyday, yet they're national treasures. Their paintings, even those less familiar, can almost be pinpointed because their style is so unique.
That can be true of writers, too. It's our unique style that makes us authentic. We could try and analyze it until the cows come home, but why? Why not just work at being who we are. Make us recognizable. Only I can do what I do. Only you can do what you do.
I don't know if I've said anything worthwhile here, but here's my final thought: Our authenticity is built in, no matter how it manifests, as long as we tell the truth. Keep it real. And AI will never be real.
Ramona. you have touched on so many crucial questions, and of course I’m asking them myself. I really appreciate this response to my post. Ultimately, a writer can’t get stuck in endless second-guessing. We just write as honestly as we can, even if we have to edit or manipulate to give the work more impact.
But I think intention and transparency are key. Lady Gaga, Madonna, Ru Paul, and a long line of performers are all intentional about the artifice - the whole point is they are riffing on conventions and traditional roles. In the same way, a first-person voice in nonfiction is a constructed persona, but I do my best to construct that persona from the real bones of myself - that built-in authenticity, as you say. 🙏🏽
I think what I admire most about your writing, Martha, is your authentic self. Your passion shows in every piece you publish, no matter where it leads. You take me to places that make me think and ultimately want to be better, but in a way that feels like a journey rather than a lecture. That's your signature!
And you're right about the artifice with Lady Gaga, Madonna, and Ru Paul. (Good add!) But my point is they can change their personas without messing with their authenticity. That's pure artistry.
Part of the issue, Martha, arises from the use of a metaphor to express what is most highly valued as a feature of text written and read to be an aesthetic object. That metaphor is "voice." Your use of the term "voice" in this piece reflects an ambiguity that can needlessly complicate the ethical question of AI use during the writing process. On one hand, you view "voice" as a fingerprint of sorts--you argue that you can "hear" your own "voice" in your writing. You want your reader to "hear" your "voice" as well, and you fervently hope that writers keep their individual "voices" alive, not surrender it to a fabricator. On the other hand, you acknowledge that "voice" is a contrivance. Writers set out to develop a "somber voice" or a "happy voice" or a "confident, authoritative voice." This isn't a "me" voice--it's a persona, a mask. I'm hear to tell you, Martha, the bot can do both, produce a damn good replica of your "me" voice AND any other type of voice you'd care to suggest. What the bot CAN'T do is easily win my approval. Most of the time the output is pretty lame, and I might be able too use some of the ideas turned up in the search, but the language itself--not so much. Get ahold of Claude 3.7, and upload ten different writing samples from your stuff. Prompt the bot to explore these texts in whatever way you like. Or start generically--I want to understand what this writer is doing to achieve the voice that is expressed by way of the language. Find patterns for me. Then you can revise and edit those patterns. The bot can spit out texts that sound like you--even amaze you. The problem is the bot STILL can't write like you because it can't THINK for itself. You have to tell it what to write, you have to tell it who your audience is. Get's this in your head if you can: BOTS DON'T THINK LIKE HUMANS. Bots will never destroy human writing.
"Voice" is what the writer signs off on. If I were sending a generic email with a lot of repetitive info, voice isn't my top concern. If I'm writing my memoirs, voice as in "me" is a critical concern, and I would think very deeply about how I represent myself in hew text. I write so many different types of texts, I'm always trying to figure out what voice/perspective/persona would be most impactful.
You can bet your bottom dollar: When you read anything by me, there is likely a bot somewhere in the background, and I don't feel the need to document that in everything I write--no more than I need to document google searches or discussions with other writers. If you can't trust me, if you think I'm fake, don't read me. In the end, ethical concerns are all about trust. We have shysters and hucksters and dilettantes throughout the species. We also have serious, capable, thoughtful people who stand behind their epistemology and their writing. This worry about AI is, to quote the Bard, much ado about nothing. Nothing has really changed.
From Ramona: "Our authenticity is built in, no matter how it manifests, as long as we remember to keep it real."
I like what you’re saying here more than you think, Terry, because in the end, I agree that it’s about trust. It’s possible to express yourself honestly, even in the first person, with the help of bots, because it’s all about how you use the tools - if I remain the captain of my intellectual ship, to paraphrase you, the work produced can feel true to me. But if we don’t push ourselves with hard ethical questions, we will lose a sense of wholeness in self-expression. That’s my concern. What I feel about my voice isn’t rational, but there’s a dimension to writing that is about feeling.
I can quibble with you about what I mean by voice, because for me it’s about more than writing style. I have done lots of bot tests, both starting with my own text or woking toward it, and the AI prose mimics my style. It can sound a lot like Martha. What it doesn’t do is think like me or include the specific details that embody my voice. I would argue that the details a writer chooses to include most accurately reflect their POV - and bots don’t get the details right. To be continued 😉
If I take a piece from a book and say the Dalai Lama wrote this, it will be received with a certain openness. If I take the same piece and say that Elon Musk wrote it, it will be looked at entirely differently.
Why don't you judge your reading just by the feeling that it evokes, and the train of logic that is displayed? Why do you want to color it by your belief in authority?
About your credentials:
Is your curriculum vitae who you ARE; or who you WERE? It is all past, isn't it? What sticks is your present level of self-expression.
Why not let people see you only through your present self-expression, (if you trust it, and if you are not trying to sell some old books)? Give NO background on yourself, or even throw out the person and become an alias or a pen-name. Just stand on your writing.
About Judging truth:
Apparently you know a lot about the history of Russia and the Ukraine? That brings you to your sureness of "the truth". I am not going to teach a history lesson, but you might want to study up on it. Arriving at "The Truth" takes a lot of work to understand motivations from so many various experiences. Probably NOBODY gets there, because they all take an off-ramp somewhere, to their favorite conventional wisdom.
About a second way to choose a belief:
All world beliefs have a reward and punishment scheme. Jesus is your savior, and non-believers go to hell. In other words all narratives (religious, political, historical), are designed to lead you by the nose. Where do they lead you? Is it to what would be constructive to your life, or is it destructive. If it is constructive, choose it, even if you don't know the truth behind it.
For instance, you favorite political party ruthlessly slaughtered over one million Slavic young men, with his PROXY WAR. That is more deaths than the USA endured in the entire 20th warring century. Apparently you don't blink, but just call it your brand of justice. I am dumbfounded by this.
About a third way to choose a belief:
Look around, who holds that same belief. How to they think, act, and behave? What is their emotional state? Are they always in reaction, and full of aggression, conflict and confrontation? It becomes very obvious what "Truths" are rubbish. Put them in the bin.
FREEDOM IS THE ABSENCE OF ALL CONFLICT IN YOUR LIFE. It is your internal state, also among external chaos.
Oh, Martha, where to start?? I could probably be here all day going from point to point in this most wonderful essay of yours, but I'm just going to stick with honesty. What is it? How does it manifest when we're writing all alone and nobody else is watching? I don't use AI and probably won't ever, but I ask myself often while I'm writing in first person personal, am I'm using language that manipulates, along with telling the story?
I know that kind of manipulation when I see it in others, but do I see it in myself? And is it all bad? What is manipulation if not a method of convincing? And isn't that the basis for all of our personal pieces? Convincing our readers that this is the real US? We work to move words around in a way that will make our readers care. Moving words around. Manipulating.
I think there are so many gray areas when it comes to honesty and authenticity. I think if we question it too much it might mean we're making too much of it. Maybe we should just embrace the persona we're trying to create. Make it the real us.
I think of entertainers like Lady Gaga and Madonna, who are far from 'real' but are nonetheless captivating. They change their persona at will or at whim, and their audiences love that feeling of imbalance. It's their mystique. (Well, maybe not Madonna's anymore.)
I love Maxfield Parrish prints. I mean, "love" isn't an exaggeration. I spent years swooning over them, and then I discovered late into my love affair that his gorgeous 'paintings' are actually photographs manipulated with paint to take on that amazing light. He didn't paint those figures, he posed them on sets of his choosing, photographed them, and then painted the highlights. Did knowing that make me love his work even less? A little. But they're still breathtaking. That's the difference with AI. His prints are wholly his signature. They couldn't have come from anyone else.
Andy Warhol did sort of the same thing, except he did it by screen-printing over already famous photographs. That feels like AI to me. Warhol made millions by dinking us.
There are artists like Andrew Wyeth and Edward Hopper who keep it real almost to the point of everyday, yet they're national treasures. Their paintings, even those less familiar, can almost be pinpointed because their style is so unique.
That can be true of writers, too. It's our unique style that makes us authentic. We could try and analyze it until the cows come home, but why? Why not just work at being who we are. Make us recognizable. Only I can do what I do. Only you can do what you do.
I don't know if I've said anything worthwhile here, but here's my final thought: Our authenticity is built in, no matter how it manifests, as long as we tell the truth. Keep it real. And AI will never be real.
Beautifully said, Ramona!
Thank you, Terry.
Ramona. you have touched on so many crucial questions, and of course I’m asking them myself. I really appreciate this response to my post. Ultimately, a writer can’t get stuck in endless second-guessing. We just write as honestly as we can, even if we have to edit or manipulate to give the work more impact.
But I think intention and transparency are key. Lady Gaga, Madonna, Ru Paul, and a long line of performers are all intentional about the artifice - the whole point is they are riffing on conventions and traditional roles. In the same way, a first-person voice in nonfiction is a constructed persona, but I do my best to construct that persona from the real bones of myself - that built-in authenticity, as you say. 🙏🏽
I think what I admire most about your writing, Martha, is your authentic self. Your passion shows in every piece you publish, no matter where it leads. You take me to places that make me think and ultimately want to be better, but in a way that feels like a journey rather than a lecture. That's your signature!
And you're right about the artifice with Lady Gaga, Madonna, and Ru Paul. (Good add!) But my point is they can change their personas without messing with their authenticity. That's pure artistry.
Ramona, I treasure this response - you make me feel that I’m sticking to my own standards for personal honesty and passion 😘
Part of the issue, Martha, arises from the use of a metaphor to express what is most highly valued as a feature of text written and read to be an aesthetic object. That metaphor is "voice." Your use of the term "voice" in this piece reflects an ambiguity that can needlessly complicate the ethical question of AI use during the writing process. On one hand, you view "voice" as a fingerprint of sorts--you argue that you can "hear" your own "voice" in your writing. You want your reader to "hear" your "voice" as well, and you fervently hope that writers keep their individual "voices" alive, not surrender it to a fabricator. On the other hand, you acknowledge that "voice" is a contrivance. Writers set out to develop a "somber voice" or a "happy voice" or a "confident, authoritative voice." This isn't a "me" voice--it's a persona, a mask. I'm hear to tell you, Martha, the bot can do both, produce a damn good replica of your "me" voice AND any other type of voice you'd care to suggest. What the bot CAN'T do is easily win my approval. Most of the time the output is pretty lame, and I might be able too use some of the ideas turned up in the search, but the language itself--not so much. Get ahold of Claude 3.7, and upload ten different writing samples from your stuff. Prompt the bot to explore these texts in whatever way you like. Or start generically--I want to understand what this writer is doing to achieve the voice that is expressed by way of the language. Find patterns for me. Then you can revise and edit those patterns. The bot can spit out texts that sound like you--even amaze you. The problem is the bot STILL can't write like you because it can't THINK for itself. You have to tell it what to write, you have to tell it who your audience is. Get's this in your head if you can: BOTS DON'T THINK LIKE HUMANS. Bots will never destroy human writing.
"Voice" is what the writer signs off on. If I were sending a generic email with a lot of repetitive info, voice isn't my top concern. If I'm writing my memoirs, voice as in "me" is a critical concern, and I would think very deeply about how I represent myself in hew text. I write so many different types of texts, I'm always trying to figure out what voice/perspective/persona would be most impactful.
You can bet your bottom dollar: When you read anything by me, there is likely a bot somewhere in the background, and I don't feel the need to document that in everything I write--no more than I need to document google searches or discussions with other writers. If you can't trust me, if you think I'm fake, don't read me. In the end, ethical concerns are all about trust. We have shysters and hucksters and dilettantes throughout the species. We also have serious, capable, thoughtful people who stand behind their epistemology and their writing. This worry about AI is, to quote the Bard, much ado about nothing. Nothing has really changed.
From Ramona: "Our authenticity is built in, no matter how it manifests, as long as we remember to keep it real."
I like what you’re saying here more than you think, Terry, because in the end, I agree that it’s about trust. It’s possible to express yourself honestly, even in the first person, with the help of bots, because it’s all about how you use the tools - if I remain the captain of my intellectual ship, to paraphrase you, the work produced can feel true to me. But if we don’t push ourselves with hard ethical questions, we will lose a sense of wholeness in self-expression. That’s my concern. What I feel about my voice isn’t rational, but there’s a dimension to writing that is about feeling.
I can quibble with you about what I mean by voice, because for me it’s about more than writing style. I have done lots of bot tests, both starting with my own text or woking toward it, and the AI prose mimics my style. It can sound a lot like Martha. What it doesn’t do is think like me or include the specific details that embody my voice. I would argue that the details a writer chooses to include most accurately reflect their POV - and bots don’t get the details right. To be continued 😉
Hello Martha;
About authority:
If I take a piece from a book and say the Dalai Lama wrote this, it will be received with a certain openness. If I take the same piece and say that Elon Musk wrote it, it will be looked at entirely differently.
Why don't you judge your reading just by the feeling that it evokes, and the train of logic that is displayed? Why do you want to color it by your belief in authority?
About your credentials:
Is your curriculum vitae who you ARE; or who you WERE? It is all past, isn't it? What sticks is your present level of self-expression.
Why not let people see you only through your present self-expression, (if you trust it, and if you are not trying to sell some old books)? Give NO background on yourself, or even throw out the person and become an alias or a pen-name. Just stand on your writing.
About Judging truth:
Apparently you know a lot about the history of Russia and the Ukraine? That brings you to your sureness of "the truth". I am not going to teach a history lesson, but you might want to study up on it. Arriving at "The Truth" takes a lot of work to understand motivations from so many various experiences. Probably NOBODY gets there, because they all take an off-ramp somewhere, to their favorite conventional wisdom.
About a second way to choose a belief:
All world beliefs have a reward and punishment scheme. Jesus is your savior, and non-believers go to hell. In other words all narratives (religious, political, historical), are designed to lead you by the nose. Where do they lead you? Is it to what would be constructive to your life, or is it destructive. If it is constructive, choose it, even if you don't know the truth behind it.
For instance, you favorite political party ruthlessly slaughtered over one million Slavic young men, with his PROXY WAR. That is more deaths than the USA endured in the entire 20th warring century. Apparently you don't blink, but just call it your brand of justice. I am dumbfounded by this.
About a third way to choose a belief:
Look around, who holds that same belief. How to they think, act, and behave? What is their emotional state? Are they always in reaction, and full of aggression, conflict and confrontation? It becomes very obvious what "Truths" are rubbish. Put them in the bin.
FREEDOM IS THE ABSENCE OF ALL CONFLICT IN YOUR LIFE. It is your internal state, also among external chaos.
.