ai isn’t the tool you are looking for
True craft and honest art come through friction
When I wrote a few anti ai rants, I ignored one of my cardinal rules. Before posting, I should have asked myself the fundament question: so what? Sure I had something to say, but there wasn’t anything that gave back. Decently written (I think) with the underlying image I wanted to convey, the words, after the first read, begged for more. Our brains are dying; ai is a beast demanding fealty; people are willingly addicting themselves to creativity replacement automations. And? So what?
The more I think it over, the more I realize that ai isn’t the monster here. Human acceptance of and hankering for ai is far more disquieting. People are willfully addicting themselves to vapid, soulless slop. No only do social feeds promote the mindless, endless scroll, reading itself has transformed into a continuous monolith devoid of page breaks. You don’t turn the page, you keep scrolling. The lust for content deepens when information becomes ubiquitous and frictionless. It’s just there. It just appears. It just is.
I come from an academic and artistic background where friction is celebrated, where ubiquitousness is shunned. Effort and novelty are badges of honour. I personally take pride in creating, from my brain, by hand, something different and hopefully engaging. That’s why my original rants fell short. They were similar to all the anti ai content generated here and everywhere else. That’s why I decided to expand, maybe answer some of the so what? Part of that answer is undoubtedly friction.
Here are three useful definitions of Friction
- Force resisting the relative motion
- Conflict, as between persons having dissimilar ideas or interests
- Force resisting the relative tendency
Resisting the relative motion. Conflict. Resisting relative tendency. The three definitions of friction above define art from creation, appreciation, and intent. Art is difficult; it should illicit conflict of some description or other; it should strive to say something new. Art should break inertia. Slop is inertia.
Resisting the relative motion
I learned to read slowly, to parse, to analyze. It’s a skill I haven’t lost. To some speed-reading is revered but reading for the sake of quick intake misses the mark. Any and all nuance is lost, imagery is ignored, complex structures glossed over. When someone calls themself a voracious reader, they most often mean they read a lot of books. I would rather be a reader who savours, also consuming, but with appreciation and not the gluttony of devouring. This skill of slowing down and consuming with discernment applies to the act of writing.
There are myriad studies proving that handwriting stimulates the brain in ways typing does not (example).The answer is simple: friction, both physical and psychological. As we write, by hand, with a pencil, a fountain pen, on paper, the process is slower, and oftentimes less linear than typing. Marginalia, strikethroughs, doodles all add to the meaning of the words themselves. We also physically consume the tools. Pencils wear down and require sharpening (oh, and that smell of incense cedar), fountain pens need to be re-inked, notebook pages fill up. There is visual and quantifiable progress in the consumption of the tool itself. Each stop, each page turn, adds the friction necessary for the brain to breathe, create links, take in errors and juxtaposition. Typing, on a screen, quickly, backspacing as you go, replaces this necessary friction with a level of efficiency that destroys creativity. I have only used an old-school typewriter a few times, but they undoubtedly add friction to the process and engage the brain more profoundly, chewing through ribbons and reams.
Conflict, as between persons having dissimilar ideas or interests
Slop appeals to members of the same echo chamber. That’s why articles all start to sound the same (even if they aren’t ai generated from a mise-en-abyme of slop).
ai is great! Make money with ai!
ai sucks! ai is unethical and destructive!
Although I am firmly in the second camp—as it applies to content and LLMs—I have read a few opposing articles that were intriguing, well-written, nuanced. The author, the human author, took the time to introduce conflict, and frame dissimilar ideas in the piece. The care taken deserved my slow read, resulting in an article I actually remembered and gleaned something from. This care, what was missing from my first pieces, comes from painstakingly constructing an argument, researching all aspects, and polishing it with engaging, macroscopic attention to detail. Writing a one-sided myopic missive, arguing it to death, while refusing to understand the validity of a different viewpoint only leads to a bunch of nodding/shaking heads and regurgitation through the slop machine.
Conflict and tension, both in content and form, can reward the slow reader. This is the friction that feeds the brain. Why have complex poetry forms survived? Search villanelle or sonnet or ghazal and you will stumble onto groups of dedicated artists still exploring them. They are hard to write and often difficult to understand. They are not geared to speed-readers addicted to volume. Complex novels, those “hard to read” tomes, appeal to a certain subset of people who are not interested, let alone fulfilled, by slop or ai generated “best sellers.” The emotional conflict of figuring something out, of rereading, researching, making assumptions, of slowing down, necessarily lead to a more fulfilling exercise.
Force resisting the relative tendency
Why make the effort of slowing down, of using tools that force you to pause, of embracing conflict instead of writing or reading what everyone else does? To be different. To make others think. To resist the relative tendency. In other words to stand out in a sea of slop, and more importantly, present something with a purpose. Engagement shouldn’t mean eyeballs; it should be measured in immersion. The writing, the art, having consumed the tools, the efforts, the time of the writer, should be rewarded with a careful, critical analysis instead of a casual, quick gloss over.
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