I was disappointed to learn “Catapult,” no-paywall magazine, publisher, and writing course hub, has closed. Last year, I worked with brilliant editor Matt Ortile on a piece for the magazine inspired in part by a vintage photo of my father in the Maxwell House labs. “Catapult” was a place to find a variety of compelling voices, many rarely heard.
This seems like a particularly bad time to lose access to a diverse offering of personal essays. The personal essay and creative nonfiction more broadly are among the genres of writing that should be AI-resistant — because they depend on and reaffirm the humanity of writers and readers.
AI can now produce texts for or instead of a writer, in part or wholly. Much debate has focused on what this means for writers and teachers (I wrote a bit about that here); at least as interesting is what it means for readers. AI will likely produce informational or instructional texts we can use. It might churn out some mass market fiction: The recent story about an editor of a sci fi/fantasy publication fielding multiple submissions of the same AI-generated tale itself reads like the opening of a science fiction story.
Many of the authors I most value are or were masters of creative nonfiction. Among them are Joan Didion, Jamaica Kincaid, Susan Orlean, Jia Tolentino, and David Foster Wallace, who have entertained, persuaded, and educated me on migraines, Antigua, orchids, reality TV, state fairs, and other subjects I didn’t realize I needed to know about until they showed me why. These are writers so good I’m embarrassed to write about them.
My favorite of their essays brim with information, some of which AI could sweep from the web. But in the best writers’ hands, simple information is transformed by a magic no technology can make or fake. Certain elements of the craft may be programmable, but the individual experience, unique perspective, inimitable voice and style — the magic of their humanness — that they bring to their subjects is not. And then there is another magic, not exactly corresponding, made by readers. Human authors create relationships with their subjects and readers.
Could AI make me fall in love with it as I have with the writers in my personal pantheon? Could it make me consider, really consider, the lobster as Wallace did with an essay that made me feel like my smartest, most sensitive friend had gently invited me to look into the pot and think about what we were about to eat?
Could AI do that? I don’t think so.
Because photos of Didion are etched onto my brain. Because I have forgotten more about her loves, joys, and grief from her splendid public diaries than I ever knew about some members of my extended family. Because when I read Tolentino, I thought, “Hurry up and live some more so I can read more of you.” Because when I assigned Kincaid to my mostly white students accustomed to vacations in the Caribbean, I watched her catch them up, teach them what no one else would in a way no one else could about the region, its history, and our responsibility. Because I can’t read Orlean without seeing Meryl Streep or remember her now legendary drunken tweet spree one night bring thousands the joy of watching a beloved aunt cut loose.
Because re-reading Wallace, I reflect on his death and that of a young colleague who admired him and also took his own life. His footnotes now resonate with the understanding that he had more to share than could be shared, overmany thoughts about thought. Wallace had a “career-long fascination with consciousness,” the critical thing AI lacks. One mark of his genius was that he refused to follow the assignment.* Sent by a cooking magazine to a lobster festival, he came back with an argument for vegetarianism and sent to enjoy himself on a cruise ship, he submitted a piece on existential dread and the futility of luxury.
Our relationships with writers across genres develop as we read and re-read their work, compare their new pieces with the old, look for patterns to enjoy or understand them more deeply.
And these relationships develop as we read about writers or hear them speak, and our relationships with their texts can begin before we’ve begun reading them (or even if we never read them—there are books I’ve never read that I hate). There is a reason so many interviews with writers begin with the question, “How did you get the idea for the book?” or “What made you want to tell this story?” Readers want that human moment pinpointed, the one we also might have had, even if we wouldn’t or couldn’t turn it into writing. We want to recognize inspiration.
We don’t just care about writing; we care about writers. When Stephen King wrote a book meant to help other writers, he didn’t pound out a how-to. He interwove advice with memoir, knowing good writing comes not from a toolkit but from a writer, a human being whose self is in the text and with whom the reader establishes a relationship. AI can produce texts, but it can provide no such relationship.
A measure of the depth of the relationship is how writers are held accountable for things well beyond the quality of their sentences and the structure of their narrative. Some of these are rooted in experience and identity, including truthfulness in memoir and authentic representation in fiction. When we deem a writer has distorted their humanity on the page or has thieved it from another, it can feel like a betrayal.
At the PEN America Literary Awards celebration last week, David Sedaris replied, in response to a question about the threat to writers from AI, “I am so excited to be dead in, like, 20 years. Because there’s not much more of this I can take.” I hear the voice with which this was spoken and know what he meant. Because no one else is David Sedaris.
*Below the subscription button I share what ChatGPT spat out when I asked it to produce a travel essay in emulation of David Foster Wallace. This is an assignment I often gave my high school students — to analyze an author’s style and write an imitation or parody. My students often produced work that was humorous and delightful. The Chat GPT output was not.
Here is what ChatGPT produced in response to my request to “write an essay in the style of David Foster Wallace.”
The Great Turkey Escape
It was the summer of 2014 and my friends and I had decided to take a trip to Turkey. None of us had ever been to this part of the world before, and we were all excited to experience the culture, the food, and the people. We arrived in Istanbul, the bustling capital city, and spent a few days exploring the Grand Bazaar and the Blue Mosque. The sights and sounds of the city were unlike anything we had ever experienced before.
But it was on the third day of our trip that things really started to get interesting. We had decided to take a day trip to the small town of Cappadocia, famous for its hot air balloon rides and underground cities. We hired a guide to take us around and show us all the best sights.
As we were driving through the countryside, our guide suddenly pulled over to the side of the road and jumped out of the van. We had no idea what was happening, but he gestured for us to follow him. We all hesitated for a moment, wondering if this was some kind of scam or trap, but eventually we decided to trust our instincts and follow him.
It turned out that our guide had spotted a wild turkey on the side of the road, and he wanted to capture it for us to take back to the city as a souvenir. We were all a little hesitant, but the guide seemed to know what he was doing, so we went along with it.
The next thing we knew, we were all running through a field, chasing after this wild turkey. It was a bizarre and unexpected moment, but we couldn't help but laugh and enjoy the absurdity of the situation. Eventually, we managed to catch the turkey and bring it back to the van, where we carefully placed it in the back seat.
As we drove back to Istanbul, we couldn't stop laughing and reminiscing about our great turkey escape. It was a moment that none of us would ever forget, and it ended up being one of the highlights of our trip. When we finally returned home, we all agreed that it was one of the most unique and memorable vacations we had ever taken.