Welcome to Inspiration Fridays! In this series, I meditate on a quote from the current featured book. Today, I’m talking about two quotes from Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones:
“We have lived; our moments are important. This is what it is to be a writer: to be the carrier of details that make up history.”
“A writer’s job is to make the ordinary come alive, to awaken ourselves to the specialness of simply being.”
In 2023, the creative community was turned on its head as AI made its grand entrance into all facets of everyday life—including creative facets. We started asking ourselves questions that seemed like they belonged in a sci-fi novel, not in our daily conversations.
What ethical boundaries should be placed around AI in creative spaces, and who gets to decide what those boundaries are?
What rights do I have to my work as a creator, and who will protect me when they are violated?
How does this new technology change how my work fits into the world?
How can I compete and stay relevant in an economy of buyers who are relying more and more on AI?
Will AI eventually replace me?
Facing these questions can be terrifying, but Goldberg is here to comfort us. Writing over forty years ago, Goldberg tells us why writers will continue to stay relevant, why we will continue to be needed—always.
AI may be able to scrub the entire internet for knowledge, but writers infuse the written world with life, with personality, with new ways of knowing and seeing.
“We have lived; our moments are important.” AI isn’t alive. It can’t look at the details of a life, pull out the pivotal moments, and peel back and examine all their layers like writers can.
“A writer’s job is to make the ordinary come alive.” Powerful writing happens when new connections form in our brains—a new way of seeing things, a fresh way to appreciate what we’ve been given, a question that no one has asked before—and we translate that connection into words—through metaphor, through a tangible description, through poetry, through a story. AI may be able to scrub the entire internet for knowledge, but writers infuse the written world with life, with personality, with new ways of knowing and seeing.
There’s so much I still need to learn about AI. There is much that is troubling, but also much that is promising. I’m trying my best to stay open and curious while also grappling with the many problems this new technology is raising.
I don’t have answers to any of the questions above, except one:
Will AI replace me? In light of Goldberg’s words, I’d say the answer is a firm no.
“We have lived.” And, simply put, AI hasn’t.
This wraps up my series on Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones! If you missed the other posts, be sure to read through the previous Inspiration Fridays posts, and stay tuned for the announcement of the book I'll be featuring throughout March and April!
Comments