This is the introductory essay from this week’s issue of my weekly newsletter, Life Is So Beautiful. The entire newsletter, including links to five things I thought were beautiful, can be found here. – HH
Last year I made a simple plaque as a gift to a friend. It was a slab of Maple, which I had sawn to size and planed to thickness, then sanded through four grits to make it as smooth as I could. I then drew the words on the plaque in a stylized font, which I then carved out using four different types of gouges and chisels. I then painted it, sealed it, and then polished with wax. It was as handmade as I know how to do it.
When I gave it to her, the first things she said was, “ohhh, you got a laser cutter!”
I almost took my gift back. It was a ridiculously human product, and the first thought of the recipient is that I used a robot to make it.
I know a laser cutter is not a robot, at least not in the Star Wars sense of the word. But more and more for the last few decades we have been more and more willing to insert technology between us and creativity.
This is different than, say, using a chainsaw to cut down a tree instead of an axe. I am still in control of the chainsaw, which does exactly what I move it to do. Without me, the chainsaw is incapable of activity. It only amplifies existing human activity, much like a bicycle does.
I can now put a series of commands into a computer screen and get a book length work of fiction as a result. I think of these things–our digital assistants, our LLM’s, our AI tools—as robots. And I do not like them.
Oh, I am as guilty as anyone to ask Alexa what the weather report is, or to get Gemini to transcribe a lengthy handwritten note to computer editable text. But I refuse to use any of them for creative tasks. I have no desire to be replaced by a machine, or to outsource my creativity to it. I want to outsource the laundry, not the art and creativity in my life.
An LLM can’t write a better story than I can, and even if it could, it still wouldn’t be my story, based on my experiences, having come from my thoughts. All it can do is write faster than I can. And whatever is wrong with my writing, it won’t get improved by increasing the speed.
I know this is an unpopular position. Many of my readers work in the IT industry, and are already gearing up to tell me how I just don’t understand the tech.
I have no interest in understanding the tech. I just want to tell stories, connect with people, and help them get through whatever thing they are struggling with right now. I am, at the end of the day, a Christian humanist. People over machines, every single time.
People matter. So does art. And so do you.