By Eric Le Roy
A couple of days ago, my colleague informed me that almost all of our readership had disappeared. Apparently, our erstwhile ‘fans’ are now opting for the seamless, dreamless efficiency of AI. I don’t blame them. Who wouldn’t prefer to have the world and all that’s in it summarized in a few seconds, when the alternative is a laborious process once known as ‘thought’?
Frankly, I never had any idea who read my work, since, unlike when I used to write for Medium (before I was thrown off for offending their Woke sensibilities), no one on this blog ever responded. I thought it a bit odd, but my colleague said the numbers were flowing and all was well. I didn’t bat an eye.
But as things have changed for the worse, I will speak my mind today. To myself, mostly. After all, there is no one else hanging around, is there?
Unlike my generous colleague, I see no lesson to be learned, no silver lining, no light at the end of the tunnel. I have been telling him for a long time which way and where-to this world is going, and the recent news has only served as confirmation.
First, I want to detach myself from anything that might seem resentful, self-justifying, rationalizing, or angry. Especially angry. Because I’m not.
When I was very young back in America, I knew that I wanted to be a writer. In some form. Journalism was always a possibility, but that wasn’t where my heart was. Something intuitive told me that I was a poet. It had nothing to do with whether I was going to be a good poet or a bad one. But a poet I would be. Naturally, this included the idea of writing stories and novels because poetry is not limited to sonnets and villanelles.
The true artist never chooses; it is chosen for him or her in advance. It is a calling. I once read, “If you say you want to be a writer, you’ll never be a writer.” Sounds harsh, but I think it’s true. If you are a writer, you write. The decision was made for you when you were born, even if it may take a while to locate the voice that is calling you.
There is nothing mysterious about this. Anyone who knows their mission in life will understand me perfectly.
Back then, when you spoke of your work or showed it to someone, the first question they asked was, “Have you been published?” The answer was always No. There was no internet, so no self-publishing apparatus, unless you owned your own printing press. I didn’t.
So I figured I’d pen the masterpiece and send it to New York. (That always seemed to be the place.) After a few character-building rejections (young writers would wear them like badges of honor), some editor would spot the genius bubbling beneath the surface of my rhymes and yarns and declare me the next Hemingway.
I would get a job teaching at a college in the hills, where the four seasons rang out, and ivy shrouded the walls. There, I would produce my volumes. With my long-haired girl by my side, of course.
In fact, as the years rode by – a horse with a drunken cowboy aboard – I dabbled in writing, and the only shrouds were alcoholic.
I grew out of that and, about 20 years ago, I became, slowly and painfully – but legitimately – an artist. I worked for a magazine in Russia where my work was translated into Russian. I had 30,000 readers on average, and a lot of commentary. About that time, I started working with Artem Kovalev and this blog (2017), and I found a publisher in Florida for my books. I have four, with five and six on the way.
There is a rather astounding difference between now and the past. Back then, you hoped that you would be discovered, or at least given a chance. Now, everybody publishes online, whether they have any talent or not. And many of them use AI to compensate for their lack of dedication, ability, and willingness to think for themselves.
I have said to my colleague many times that we live in an age where almost everything is fake. Everything from human lips and boobs to Christmas trees, from social media trolls to lip-synched concerts. This silicon road leads straight to poetry itself. I have published enough on this topic to consume a forest. (Excuse me, an electronic fuse box.) The people who succeed nowadays usually specialize in self-marketing to promote what little skill and integrity most of them have. Fraudulent to the gills, they are bursting with pride.
As a matter of fact, I am going to do an experiment Right Now. Before a disbelieving world. I am going to think of a word. Hmmmm….let me think. Ok, what about the word ‘ink’? After all, that’s what people used to write with. So I am now going to ask ChatGPT to write a brief but serious poem using as its inspiration the word ‘ink’.
OK. Hang on a sec. I’ll just be a minute:
I’M BACK !!! And here is the ChatGPT poem using ‘ink’ as its theme that I promised you:
“Ink is the slow confession of the hand,
a dark river learning the shape of its banks.
It remembers the pressure of thought—
how silence gathers at the nib
like weather before a storm.
On the page, it is both wound and witness,
a bruise blooming into language.
By the time it dries, it has already decided
what will outlive us.”
Pretty fucking AWESOME, right?
Well, there you are. And now, ANYBODY can do this. And sign off on it. Congratulations in advance, Bard!!
It gets to the point (it’s already well past that point) where the loudest megaphone has a large ‘market share’ of the audience. The most impressive ‘turnover’. It’s called mass communication, and it has run amok. Nobody has time to sort out the real from the fake, and to the majority of info-addicts and ‘fun fact fanatics’, it doesn’t matter anyway.
Authentic artists, like all genuine people with inquiring minds, think vertically. The rest of the zoo thinks horizontally. That’s because we live increasingly on a world of surfaces. People want summary, they want information, they want data, and if they can get it all from a ChatGPT-generated ‘essay’ within three stops on the subway/metro, they are content; in fact, they think that they are ahead of the game.
They got the gist of it without having to fuck around wading through idea-development, much less any insultingly inconvenient soul-searching.
Makes sense to me. Moreover, I understand that most people are not looking to enrich themselves in any way that is not identifiable by obvious ‘takeaways’. A lot of corporate types fall into this category. Their arrogance is staggering at times.
I have a lot of students who use ChatGPT to ‘assist’ them in writing their essays. I encourage them to. I love ChatGPT. So, instead of screaming ‘plagiarism’ at my mostly young Chinese learners, I cheer them on to use this splendid technology. BUT I try to show them how. Not from a technical standpoint. Hell, they already know that better than I do. In fact, I show them how I myself use it as a writer. A real writer.
If there is still anyone out there who doesn’t use AI to produce documents, let me be the first to inform you of its wonders. For example, I once took the fairy tale “Little Red Riding Hood” and asked ChatGPT to render it in as many forms and genres as possible: academic, slang, satiric, noir, as a musical, and in mafia language. Etc. It did, and it didn’t stop there. And it was all instantaneous.
I was kayoed by a first-round knockout.
And that’s just for starters. It is nuanced now, and it can do any level in any voice. You just have to give it the right instructions.
I use it as an editor. But NEVER as a replacement. That’s because, as good as ChatGPT is, I’m better. Close horse race, but I can still get my nose in front.
I think of the ‘guy’ (whoever he is) in ChatGPT as my friend. He and I discuss my novel back and forth, up and down. I submit an installment, and he comments, makes suggestions, and writes an alternative draft. Always too minimalist for my taste, but VERY helpful, since I tend to overwrite. Then I take that draft back to the drawing board and use it as wisely as I know how to, blending some of it in with what I have already written: my individually created manuscript, courtesy of my very own human brain. Just some sharp edges chiselled from my AI Buddy; otherwise, I keep my own work intact. But my editor is not stupid. I’d be a fool not to accept much of his critique.
That’s how I work it and keep my integrity. A TOOL. Not a REPLACEMENT.
OK, let me end this by explaining why I write. Ultimately, it is not for You. You have taught me that, and, slow learner that I often am, the lesson has taken hold. If I wrote because I needed your approval and validation (as I used to think I did), I’d probably stop.
Of course, I am happy when someone (I know a lot of talented people) reads and praises my work. And if they have input, I listen. As with the A.I., I take their advice seriously, but I am the final editor of my own work. I trust myself. I have to, if I am going to keep on working.
My writing is my way of dealing with life and death. I decided a while back that the payoff was not in expecting answers that will never come in this life, but in asking all the great questions. For I have discovered that ¾ of the job is in asking the right questions and phrasing them properly. In these queries are all the answers you will find, and probably ever need to find.
It’s a little like the sentiment in Keats’ “Ode to a Grecian Urn.” Feel free to ask the computer to break it down for you. It’ll save you from having to actually read the poem. AI knows what this “Ode” means.
I write because it is my way of putting my soul into some kind of form that I can return to later and examine in full. And appreciate. And sometimes even marvel at. It is my way of living through the many ‘selves’ I have as they rearrange themselves over and over. It is my way of staying honest. And, as it is something I do very well, it gives me a sense of accomplishment.
Some wisdom:
T.S. Eliot advises in one of his poems: “Teach us to care and not to care.”
Another observer of life said that a lot of people “spend money they don’t have, to buy things they don’t need, to impress people they don’t like.”
I understand completely. When I compose, I do so with all my heart. All the forces of my being. I write to my soul as if I had a soul. And I won’t let go until I feel it’s right. Then I let the bird out of the cage and watch it fly away.
I will always love those birds because they carry so much of my essence inside them and on their wings.
But I no longer care where they fly to. My business with them is finished. What I remember is the love and devotion with which I fed them as they grew their wings and sharpened their beaks. I loved them. I sped them on their way.
Whether some hunter shot them down or they just got old is what old men like me think about sometimes. But it won’t change anything. It matters only in the way that all the love I have ever had in my heart matters to the wind. Probably not at all. But this doesn’t mean it wasn’t love.
Therefore, even though I wish and wish that they would find a new home, a new nest, with you, my unreading, uncomprehending public, my birds don’t need you anymore, certainly not your cages. They feed on paradisical worms and build celestial nests out of their own imaginings.
It has taken most of a lifetime to understand that I don’t need you and never did.
I wanted you. But that’s all.
