Write to know: why writing must always be human

Before we slouch into the arena to discuss AI writing versus human writing, we need to zoom out and ask a simpler question: What is writing?

- NANDINI NAIR

At its most fundamental level, it is “a way to communicate meaning across space and time” (as speaketh Claude AI). But at a more philosophical level, writing is a mode of inquiry. It is how we observe and ponder. It is how we cohere human experience into understanding. It is conscious daydreaming. Just as no two people have identical dreams, no two people's written work can perfectly plot onto each other's. And that is why writing is so glorious. It is specific to each one of us.

Those who argue that large language models (LLMs) are like the calculator—it helps us arrive quicker at an answer—see writing as a tool.

Sure, it is a tool, but unlike mathematics, with writing, there is no one correct answer. If we see writing only as a tool, then we overlook the importance of lived experience. Writing and reading is an act of communion, and for it to be sanctified, we need the facts. Has this author spent hours, days, weeks or months kneading each sentence into meaning? Or has the person fed prompts into a system and relied entirely on an external syntax?