It’s rather unfortunate how mainstream and ubiquitous it has become to see people being incapable of the simple act of sending a put-together email or message without relying on their favorite AI tool.
As a member of a society that used to learn cursive in elementary school, it comes as quite a shock to see people who have forgotten how to effectively communicate using their words.
Humans have historically had a proclivity for storytelling. Communication runs through our veins. Humans have rich histories of not only developing complex forms of language, but also refining it through extraordinary feats of literature, poetry, drama, and dialogue. With a rise in people using AI tools to communicate the simplest of messages, it feels disheartening to see such a rich tradition of writing being thrown away in favor of monotonic efficiency.
If we measure the value of writing purely by its extrinsic reward, or simply as a task meant to be accomplished, then AI certainly does take the point there for efficiency. An AI tool can generate text that fulfills a specific purpose within a certain word and character limit to a tee. It can pull inspiration from an extensive library of writing samples that can be accessed on the Internet.
The one thing an AI tool cannot ever replicate is the intrinsic reward of writing.
It is in the intrinsic rewards that we reap the most valuable gift of writing: the act of engaging in direct communication with our own being.
By writing, we are repeatedly becoming more conscious of ourselves and our inner voices. Numerous times, I have observed that writing helps to smooth out tangled lines of thought into clear, direct plans of action. Writing can help vague, disjointed ideas coalesce into profound ponderings. The more you write, the more you are repeating this exercise and becoming a more critical thinker and observer.
There are so many instances where I struggle to decipher my own stances on certain subjects. However, once I put pen to paper, or dump out my thoughts onto a Google Doc, it’s almost elementary to put together the pieces and better understand my perspective. And that’s because when formulating an argument, we witness that very debate in our minds. We are able to decide where our opinions lie by watching our minds battle out opposing perspectives for themselves and arriving at those conclusions ourselves. By turning concepts over in our minds to clear doubts and ask further questions, we are able to gain a deeper understanding of the subject.
Writing certainly isn’t easy. There are times you’ll be stuck in the dreaded valley of writer’s block: staring at a blank screen while your brain struggles to dredge up the words and ideas you need. Luckily, as with most things, writing can be improved through practice and repeated motion. There is an art to writing that comes with repeated practice, and understanding the struggle of effective writing and communication allows us to better appreciate the prodigious writers, storytellers, and poets of the world, who navigate words with such ease and finesse.
Another intrinsic reward of writing is that it encourages us to become better speakers. Writing makes one more articulate. It’s a common phenomenon to have an idea in your head but not know how to precisely communicate it in words. It’s also very common for people to spend considerably more time and use considerably more words than would otherwise be necessary in order to present and communicate a point that could have been expressed much more simply and concisely.
Ironically, the preceding sentence is an excellent example of this excessive expression it is attempting to explain.
I must agree with Shakespeare’s comment that brevity is certainly the soul of wit and a hallmark of an excellent communicator. A good rule of thumb: keep things brief.
Writing isn’t the cure-all for most crises of communication, but it can certainly help a great deal. Repeated writing expands the vocabulary and enables clearer and more concise expression. Possessing a varied vocabulary also spices up your conversations a great deal. Why would you use the word “bad” when you could use the words “abhorrent” or “repugnant”? It makes life more interesting.
Writing is also inherently whimsical! While different languages have different ways to play with words, English boasts several kinds of figures of speech, literary devices, and figurative language. In fact, throughout this very article, I have impulsively indulged in including several instances of alliteration, which is my personal favorite figure of speech. Writing doesn’t have to be a drag– have fun with it.
All this is not to say that using an AI tool to write is unacceptable. The problem lies in using AI to generate the ideas behind the words. It’s one thing to use an AI tool to check grammar and spelling, and another to use it to generate a simple message. At the very least, if one uses AI to refine their writing, I’d encourage them to at least try to learn something from it to become a better writer the next time, rather than blindly relying on it time and time again without putting in the effort to communicate. This is how the ability to communicate effectively can still be retained in the age of AI.
Finally, I’d like to shift your perspective back to that of the recipient of an AI-generated email or message. How would you feel investing the time to read something that another person didn’t bother taking the time or effort to write?
Personally, at that point, I’d rather just have the sender send the prompt that they sent to their favorite AI tool. At least then, I’d get an unfiltered idea of what exactly they were trying to convey.