Here I sit, editing a chapter of my novel, racking my brain for faults. It’s finished. But something keeps nagging at me. Something tempts me to work endlessly. Jack Kerouac, in his “Essentials of Spontaneous Prose,” says, “Time being of the essence in the purity of speech, sketching language is undisturbed flow from the mind of personal secret idea-words, blowing (as per jazz musician) on subject of image.” So, I write without breath, like a trombonist on a roll.
I reach about 12 pages before landing a perfect 10 on that mat of creative flow. But, in the mad dash to complete it, in my Dionysian frenzy to get it down while I had it, mistakes were made. Some, easy fixes. I’m instead of Im; their instead of they’re; etc., etc. But I can’t help but feel I’m still missing a few important mistakes. I run my finger through every dot, dash, and dit. I nitpick my prose (and myself) to death.
Then, I remember: Grammarly! I’ve used it before in the past to catch mindless mistakes my mind erased from looking or staring too long. It’s been years since I used it. Lately, I try to get as much done without technology as possible. I even keep a journal now. Purely man-made. But, just this once … I can backslide and use it. It’s like cooking with propane instead of charcoal, right? As long as the work gets done, there’s nothing wrong with a second opinion. Even if it’s a computer.
In the years since I used Grammarly, though, generative AI has slowly but surely stalked through industries, ready to sink its claws into any field it can find. This one is no exception. What began as simple editing software now begs you to use genAI for everything. When you open a new document, it offers an option called Goals. I click on it, curious. The menu drops down, gives me settings for my document. As if it’s a video game. Your “audience” can be set to General, Knowledgeable, or Expert. You can choose to be either informal in tone or as formal as a Victorian. For a fee, you can customize your audience even further. As casual as friends or as serious as business. Finally, and even more appallingly, you can set your intent: from storytelling to convincing!
Like Dr. Grant in Jurassic Park, it looks like I might be out of a job. Hell, even extinct! I feel ill plugging my story in, but am still determined to check the grammar. Without paying for Pro, I have access to old ways. Wrong words and ill-fitting commas sought out as if by bloodhound. But I can’t get the settings menu out of my head. Is this app being as neutral as I would prefer? Or is there some invisible hand guiding my pen, making me my own plagiarist? I can’t do this. I can’t do this! I pull my document out. I rip it from those mechanical hands, and vow never to use them again.
But do I have a choice? Even going analog, genAI’s still all around me. It gives the user an advantage, like an athlete on steroids who cheated everyone out of a fair shake. We shouldn’t accept the gold medal, though.
I read Kerouac’s “Essentials” again, hoping for an answer, seeking solace from this awful, cheetah-speed modernization. What I find, once again, are scribbled notes and grammar mistakes. Encouragement to show your hand, be bold, and accept that, maybe, art is not meant to be perfect; it’s to be expressive and expansive rather than refined and honed. That’s something we are losing with this whole AI marvel: the doing, failing, learning. Someone once said all art is accessible, it’s passion most are lacking. Therein does our society lie. Therein do we stay alive and kicking.
I’m not anti-tech. But wasn’t AI supposed to do my laundry? So I can sit outside and enjoy the sunshine? Lounge, laze, doodle? What’s it doing replicating a worse yet shiny version of my own poetry? Go wash my dishes! Go paint the fences! Let us rest by the river and dreamweave with the clouds.
But that’s not the fantasy we’ll receive, it seems. The best we can do now is scribble our grocery lists on loose pages and ask strangers for directions again. If AI is here to stay, I’ll do my best to scrub my feed and life of its influence.
Now, where’s my thesaurus? There has to be a word for this. Ah, Luddite? Untethered? Liberated? Independent! The answer, I think, is human. Yes, free and purely me. Warts and all.
William Smythe is a local writer and poet. He writes for Focus Mid-South, an LGBTQ magazine.