Searching for the right word

“The search for the right word to fill the right place can occupy a lifetime. And, I’m convinced, make a self along the way.” In The New York Times Margaret Renkl writes about why writers should not use AI:

The writing teachers I know struggle to persuade their students not to use these tools. They are everywhere now, impossible to swat away. Who could blame a young writer for wondering how using these “assistants” is any different from using spell check or letting Siri supply the next word in a text? Besides, if they don’t use these tools, won’t they be falling behind the many students who do? It’s a fair point.

But letting a robot structure your argument, or flatten your style by removing the quirky elements, is dangerous. It’s a streamlined way to flatten the human mind, to homogenize human thought. We know who we are, at least in part, by finding the words — messy, imprecise, unexpected — to tell others, and ourselves, how we see the world. The world which no one else sees in exactly that way.

Alas, I can hear (in my head) English Department types worrying: “Our students need to know this.” Maybe they will. But they first need to know how to read and reason and write.

Thanks to Stefan Hagemann for pointing me to Renkl’s essay.