Whenever I think of AI-generated writing I think of the movie Twins.
If you have not seen it, it’s about twin brothers who are the result of a secret experiment carried out at a genetics laboratory to combine the sperm/DNA of six fathers to produce the perfect child. The embryo split in two and what you got was Julius who was the perfect physical and mental human specimen (played by Arnold Arnold Schwarzenegger), and the other Vince who is physically and mentally almost the exact opposite… played by Danny DeVito.
Anyway, here is the part of the script I want to show you:
(Where they confront the guy, Traven, in charge of the experiment)
VINCE: This must be where you made the milkshake…
TRAVEN: We weren’t making milkshakes. We were making the most fully-developed human the world has ever seen.
VINCE: But instead of just one perfect kid, Mom had two of us — way to go, Mom.
TRAVEN: Wrong. The embryo split in two, but it didn’t split equally. All the purity and strength went into Julius. All the crap that was left over went into what you see in the mirror every morning.
VINCE: Whoa — I’m the crap?
JULIUS: It’s not true, Vince.
VINCE: No, I want to hear this. I’m left-over crap? I’m no good?
JULIUS: He’s wrong.
TRAVEN: Just look at him —
VINCE: You tellin’ me I’m a side effect!?!
And so it is with AI-created writing, art, whatever:
The dorklords and broccoli heads who obsess over it think the result is Julius but really they just got the crap left over from smarter, better, and greater minds, and then try to put it together in a way that doesn’t sound totally incoherent, stupid, and probably even insulting to the intended audience in a lot of cases — unless they are catering to the lowest common denominator, I suppose.
It’s all rather amusing to watch play out.
Just a year ago people were running around saying it would change everything.
You won’t have to write ever again!
It was as silly as the woman on TV who thought she’d never have to pay her mortgage again the night Obama got elected. Everyone is looking for that shortcut that doesn’t exist. That tool that will liberate them from doing the hard work. The piece of technology that will disguise their flaws, removing the required blood, sweat, & pain of doing the process to achieve the outcome.
No.
It doesn’t work that way.
Tools can help make writing faster and more efficient.
(I am typing this not hand writing it, for example)
But it won’t do the writing for you.
And I don’t care if we’re talking about copywriting, email writing, grant writing, fiction writing, press release writing, non-fiction writing, poetry writing, or frankly even grocery list writing — creating a collage of others’ writing ain’t the way to create anything that has genuine engagement that lasts the test of time. This is a small part of a very big discussion I talk a lot about inside my paid Email Players newsletter on a somewhat regular basis.
To learn more about it go here:
Ben Settle
