Tag: Editing

On Writing in the Age of AI (and a Pre-Announcement)

Things have been quiet—too quiet—over here on the blog. This is a big reason why I did not want to switch to Substack and try to get paying subscribers. Whatever gifts and abilities I have, productive regularity in my writing is not one of them. And I’ve seen too many ambitious Substackers get themselves in an awkward situation with regard to failing to crank out content for their paying subscribers.

Photo by nedimshoots on Unsplash

M-Dashes and the AI Temptation

The reason it’s been quiet here is—follow me closely here—I haven’t been writing very much. Now some astute readers may start to get suspicious at this point. I’ve used two sets of m-dashes in these first few paragraphs, and m-dashes are notorious indications of generative AI writing. But you know what? I love m-dashes. That’s why I quite loved reading this article, “I Love the Em Dash—Too Bad If AI Does Too.” (I found the link to it from this post from Tim Challies). I’ll admit I’ve been avoiding the m-dash for months—until reading the article and embracing my beloved punctuation friend again. Why the avoidance? Because in the back of every writer’s mind is the growing consciousness that something has changed in recent months. And what has changed? Namely that readers now read online texts with a suspicion that it was written by an artificial neural network and not a human person, and they don’t like it.

The writer’s awareness of the reader’s awareness drives the writer to avoid any indications of being artificial, even if that means changing the natural way they would normally write—which is ironic. But it makes sense when you realize that the AI models don’t have any writing ability or any style of their own, they only mimic and ape human writing with varying degrees of skill. So the programmers get the AI to write like good writers and good writers look in horror at the machine simulacra being churned out which most readers would not be able to distinguish from their own writing and the writers respond by changing the way they write to sound more human. The next step is inevitable: the programmers will teach the AI models to mimic this new, more human-style of writing, and the writers will resort to ever more extreme efforts to sound genuinely human.

As I’ve thought about this feedback loop dynamic and the profound challenge it poses to writers, I’ve concluded three things:

  1. It will not be possible for human writers to outpace generative AI, nor for readers to reliably distinguish human from machine text.
  2. Despite this, most readers will continue to strongly prefer human-written texts over AI texts for anything in the fields of journalism, opinion, creative non-fiction, or fiction. These are irreducibly human endeavours, and a reader rightly feels cheated and wronged when he or she discovers that a text of that nature was written by a machine.
  3. Therefore, the only way through for all involved is to cultivate trust. Readers will gravitate towards writers and institutions that have gained their trust through a demonstrated commitment to keeping their writing genuinely human.

I don’t see any other way forward. Writers credibly accused of using generative AI to write for them ought to lose their readers’ trust. (Caveat: I think there is a legitimate place for AI in research and some of the more mechanical aspects of editing).

Sadly, the temptation to use generative AI to write more and better will be too strong for some. There will be more scandals, especially among Christian writers aspiring to greater readership, larger platforms, and more followers. My advice to writers is to tread extremely carefully and consider the realm of AI as a kind of forbidden-fruit temptation. Yes, you’ll surely gain something, but you’ll end up losing far more, even if you don’t get caught.

Related to this is growing importance of institutional stewardship. I see two factors coming together to create a severe challenge to any organization that publishes content. The first is the general decline of trust in institutions that has characterized the 21st century, a trend that was accelerated during the pandemic. The second is the temptation to pass AI-generated content as human-generated content in order to do more faster.

My most popular post of all time on this blog was a critical response to what I considered to be a grievous failure of institutional stewardship: “Yes, Jesus was Crucified with Nails (and It’s Irresponsible to Suggest Otherwise).” In that case, it was not the use of AI that was the issue but the undermining of readers’ trust in the truthfulness of the Scriptures that was the issue. Still, it was a stark reminder that trust is a precious commodity in the realm of readers, writers, and editors.

An Announcement of an Announcement

All this has been on my mind not only because I’m a freelance writer and editor, but also because of a new and exciting development in my life that will soon be public. When that happens, I’ll be sure to post an update here as well.

On Writing

For as long as I can remember, I have loved writing. But I have always resisted the idea that writing might be a part of my identity and calling in life. I’m not sure why. Recently that has been changing.

I realize now that my childhood home was filled with books in a way that was unusual. My parents were often to be seen reading. My older brother Alex quickly became a devoted reader, blasting through stacks of novels. All of this rubbed off on me, and things which I took to be unremarkable I now see as a foreshadowing of things to come.

I remember having two truly excellent English teachers who both left a mark on me. The first was Mr. Wiggins, who taught me in both grade 5 and grade 6. He was an extremely tall man with large glasses. For some reason I don’t remember what his voice sounded like. He was funny. He would write long sentences across the blackboard and then when he got to the end of the space he would continue writing on the walls of the classroom. To a schoolchild, even a hint of playful rebellion in an authority figure like a teacher is delightful. He got ten and eleven-year-olds to learn words like extemporaneous and calamity and vociferous. I ate it all up, the lessons and the assignments.

Once, when we were told to bring something to read quietly in class, I brought one of our treasured Calvin & Hobbes books along with a dictionary for looking up words I didn’t know. Mr. Wiggins was impressed. I still think Calvin & Hobbes is pretty brilliant and a great way to expand one’s vocabulary:

“Pathetic Peripatetics!”
I probably had to look up “transcendental.”

The other excellent English teacher that left a mark on me was a Mr. Bellamy in high school. He also was a popular teacher. He taught us to write. I don’t remember how he did it, but the end result of it was that I very badly wanted to write the most excellent pieces of creative writing in order to impress him. I worked at it diligently over that year and submitted papers I was proud of. As someone who mostly breezed through school, that level of effort was a new experience. He read those papers carefully and handed them back with copious comments and sometimes a personal conversation too. I couldn’t pinpoint exactly how, but I know for a fact that I’m a better writer today for having had Mr. Bellamy as a teacher.

Some years later, and after my spiritual rebirth at the age of 19, I wrote a short reflection on writing. I recently found it tucked away in an old file in my computer backups. I had forgotten I had ever written it, so it felt like I was reading someone else’s words:

What is writing? It is notation. But there is writing and then there is writing. And the latter sparks revolutions, both quiet and cataclysmic. Writing is communication bordering on impartation. It is a medium so broad that the loftiest ideas imaginable have room aplenty to cross the great divide between these independent entities we call minds.

I wonder, I wonder; am I a writer? Oh I can notate just fine, but can I impart? Can I, with the finesse and restraint of an artist, craft and swirl, lift and push, yes and with finality make a collection of words that imparts the ineffable? Can I sow seeds of the good without the soil’s knowledge, at least until after the fact? Can I teach the eye to see, and yes even to love, the beautiful even as it lusts for the profane? Can I in some small way affect that impenetrable centre of being, the heart, with what I can only pray will be a taste, an appetite, yes a hunger, for that essence which is sourced entirely in the threefold Spirit of the I AM?

Can I be a writer? Probably not. But can I write? Well I hope so. 

I think I wrote that in my early 20’s, about 15 years ago. What I like about that reflection above is that it expresses something I still feel deeply, namely that words have this mysterious but undeniable power to nudge us towards virtue or vice, towards God or away from Him.

Despite writing occasionally on this blog and receiving some affirmation here and there, it has only been in this last year that these lingering questions have been answered for me as doors have opened up for writing and editing in a more public way. One of those open doors has been over at TGC Canada, where I’ve been able to write a serious book review, a piece of cultural criticism, and a piece of spiritual reflection. In each case I’ve been blown away by the positive responses.

In addition, I’ve been given opportunities to do some editing by an extremely accomplished author and editor, Dr. Michael A. G. Haykin. Here is the first look at the fruit of that partnership:

Dr. Haykin is very generous with his time and advice, giving me a chance to work in the world of publishing like this. In addition to this volume on John Gill which will be published this year, we are working on two other projects.

This all has seemed too good to be true. It’s almost like I’m a writer!

Well, I guess I am. I’m just going to have to get used to the idea.

_________________________________________________________________________

As I was waiting for the Rogan piece to be published, I was rather nervous. I had worked on it for months. I had really pushed myself to weave together a narrative that was compelling, intellectually stimulating, and edifying. And as such it felt like more of a risk, and like more of my self was wrapped up in it. When it finally came out, the response was a bit overwhelming for an almost-complete novice to the online writing world. Tim Challies linked to it, and then the main TGC USA site featured it in their Around the Web links for a day. Collin Hansen tweeted it out. I got asked to do a radio interview for a Christian station in Pittsburgh.

And all this happened on the week of the 10th anniversary of my mother’s death, in early March. I tried to write about that at the time, but nothing seemed to come together. It was a strange mix, the marking of a sad milestone along with success in the sphere where my mother had the most influence on me. She was a writer and an editor too. And although I don’t remember sitting down with her to get tips on writing and editing, I know I picked up a lot of things along the way.

I noticed how hard she would work at finding just the right word, as evidenced by the scribbled and scratched-out notes covering her text. I saw how she stressed out over the regular column she had to write for the magazine she edited, yet somehow always found something to submit by the deadline.

Looking back now I guess it makes sense I would end up so involved with words. But all along the way I see how people in my life—my parents, teachers, and others—earned themselves an unpayable debt of gratitude by investing in me and giving me opportunities. Ultimately my writing and editing, like every other aspect of a Christian’s life and calling, is a stewardship of what has been given by God, and faithfulness is the call.

I have tried to write well even when only one person would ever read my words. I have tried to think and write well even when the number of readers of this blog was less than ten. In a sense, the numbers truly don’t matter, and until they don’t matter, the writing itself is tainted. That is something else I learned from Bill Watterson: to do a thing for the love of it and no other reason. (I got this from his only public speech). It is analogous to Eric Liddell’s feeling that God was pleased when he ran, for He had made him to run. My own motives are always mixed, but this is the north star I try to orient them by.

The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
    indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

Psalm 16:6