AI vs Creatives: A warning from 1982

As a Gen Xer, I live in this strange space where I grew up in a decidedly non-digital world — knowing full well that it was true and messy and not perfect, but also that is was real and the reason I am the way I am—and where I am also a a true digital native, in the best sense possible, where I know that technology is truly wild and wonderful and has made so many thing infinitesimally easier, but it is also in the end, just a tool.

Not a friend, not my savior — just a tool, made by humans who are messy and not perfect, and definitely not always true.

Anyway, the other day I remembered the first textbook I was assigned when I learned English back in fourth grade. I remember the book clearly, not just the smell and weight of it—in my mind’s eye I can recall the stories and even some of the rhymes—and because of the wonders of technology, I knew I would be able to find the book. It only took a couple of clicks, and there it was, in the internet archive, in all it’s early 80s glory: The Nitty Gritty ^rather pretty^ City.

I took a casual stroll down memory lane, pleasantly impressed at the quality of the stories and the casual sprinkling of poetry and pure art throughout in an elementary reader (they don’t make things like they used to…does this make me sound old? I don’t care, it’s the truth) when I got to the story that I am pretty sure first planted the seed in my little eight year old mind that I was going to be a writer someday. It’s called Apartment 6A, and I’ve attached it below. (In case you are curious, the second story that fed that seed was Harriet the Spy. My goodness, I was so inspired by her composition book and the mentions of dumbwaiters—there were no such things in Santo Domingo, not even close—so the whole book and the characters that lived in it seemed terribly exotic to me.)

Back to my elementary reader: What I find most interesting is that this story (which was published in 1982 for schoolchildren…don’t forget this part) in rather suspenseful and elegantly menacingly way foretold the rise of AI and what it would do to the psyche of human creativity.

and in continues..

Talk about a cliffhanger! In my opinion this short story is Art with a capital A, and I say that sincerely.

Like the writer in Apartment 6A, we are faced with temptation and opportunity. Like the writer in Apartment 6A, I sometimes feel like I’m at the edge of losing control of my creative powers (whatever they are) to ChatGPT, which of course, is nonsense because my creativity and yours is power that can only come from you, if you allow it.

I believe and know that creativity is one of the human generated power sources—love, of course is another—and as such cannot simply be created by the AI corporations. They feed off human creativity and power, and while I don’t have the answer on what comes next, I do know that those of us who have nurtured and protected originality in ourselves and others simply cannot stop doing our thing just because the robots are copying us. After all, our fellow flawed humans have been copying from us forever, and it hasn’t stopped creative pursuits. I have to believe we will keep going.

I suppose this means that we will simply have to keep being a step ahead, and the plagiarists, whether machine or human will have to keep up.

Keep creating, we need your power!

roxsar•*