Why Human Writing Is Worth Defending In the Age of ChatGPT

Naomi Baron: We need to make a serious stab at understanding how writing affects us as people.

Baron: Literate brain empowers us to use writing as a canvas for witnessing our thoughts.

If writing helps us think, what happens when we surrender the process to AI ? We risk becoming cognitively and expressively disempowered.

Naomi Baron: Writers need to make peace with the language genie, while holding fast to opportunities for thinking and creating that writing bestows on us.

She says the bulk of writing that most of us produce skews impersonal; AI has no drive to better people’s lives, impart what it is thinking, or convey emotion.

Baron: If we cede to AI final say about words and even commas, we jeopardize artistic pride.