AI can’t write my heart
There were many moments during my time competing when I had to play against a better tennis player. My opponent could cover the court faster, rally with shots that went deeper, and hit serves that I couldn’t reach unless I grew an extra arm. During these matches, my coach would call out to me and shout, “Puso!”
And if I’m being completely honest, I had trouble finding that encouraging. My inner monologue probably sounded like this: “Oh no. Kuya Mar doesn’t know what to do either, so we’ve resorted to calling out random body parts.”
With more experience (and added frontal lobe development), I started to see what he meant. When you’re faced with someone stronger, faster, or better than you, you have to pull conviction from something within. Because if you’re outmatched in skill and ability, you can still fight with heart.
I’m fascinated by how often we use the term “heart” in common sayings. When a person confesses their deepest thoughts and feelings, we say they poured their heart out. Ask a parent about their child, and they’ll sometimes say that their kid carries “a piece of their heart.”
In using these idioms and metaphors, I think we’re trying to pinpoint a certain essence that’s unique to each one of us. When we say “heart,” I think we’re trying to say something about our humanity.
The author Ted Chiang also mentions this concept in his New Yorker article (and one of my favorites on the topic), “Why AI isn’t going to make great art.” He reflects on the Paris Olympics ad that Google ran for their AI assistant, Gemini. In it, a dad shares how his daughter is a big fan of world-record-breaking sprinter and hurdler Sydney Michelle McLaughlin-Levrone. He says, “My daughter wants to show Sydney some love, and I’m pretty good with words, but this has to be just right.” The ad then shows the AI chatbot draft a fan letter from this girl to her hero and ends with text across the screen: “a little help from Gemini.”
In reflecting why this ad received so much backlash, Chiang writes that no one expects a child’s fan letter to be extraordinary. “The significance of a child’s fan letter comes from its being heartfelt rather than its being eloquent.”
I, for one, have been labeled as an AI hater by some of my friends and family. When someone mentions something they looked up on ChatGPT, my friends would joke, “Wait, don’t say that in front of Mae!”
To clear the air (hi, friends and family), I’m not opposed to all types of artificial intelligence. I’m not going to lie and say that I’d choose to spend hours scavenging books and articles if I had a tool that could sum up the sources for my research papers back then. As someone prone to overthinking, I’ve used ChatGPT to vent and analyze my blood test results (before consulting with an actual doctor).
If we make efficiency and productivity the be-all and end-all of every endeavor, we should ask ourselves: What are we willing to let AI replace? How far will it go?
But Generative AI also terrifies me. Back in 2022, an AI-generated piece won first place at the Colorado State Fair digital arts competition. Video game designer Jason Allen said he created his winning piece by entering words and phrases into the AI image generator Midjourney, which produced 900 renderings in an instant.
Am I worried that AI will replace artists, musicians, and writers one day? Yes, I am, and I think it’s a very real, very scary possibility. It’s not because I believe that AI creates beautiful art or anything nearly as moving as what humans can create, but it’s because I know what our world prioritizes. Our society likes speed, efficiency, and output over process. Throughout my time writing books, I’ve seen that publishing is a business. I take about a year to draft a manuscript for a novel, so from a business standpoint, I see the dystopian appeal of AI churning out books with lower cost and higher output.
Yet if this is the way of the world—if we make efficiency and productivity the be-all and end-all of every endeavor, we should ask ourselves: What are we willing to let AI replace? How far will it go?
In one of my favorite movies, The Half of It, there’s a pivotal scene where the main character’s dad, Edwin, opens up to his daughter’s friend, Paul. Edwin speaks in Mandarin as he shares how he lost himself when his wife passed away. Paul doesn’t know a word of Mandarin, yet he gazes at Edwin with this look of grace and understanding. The scene always struck me as a depiction of what it’s like to witness someone else’s humanity.
When I was invited to write this article, I was given the prompt: What roles might books and writing play in the lives of young people now, especially with the advent of AI? Even though I sometimes wish I could skip to the end where all my plot points make sense, and I have a finished book in my hands, I don’t want to give up the process. To create is to make time for the mess, to discover, to revise. I love books and storytelling because it’s my way of witnessing other people’s humanity, of witnessing their heart.
You might argue that as an author, I would of course have a biased, rose-tinted view on all of this. And I do. I need to, if I want to keep writing books. But I’d like to invite you to see things from my perspective.
Write the cringey fan letter, draw the imperfect self-portrait, and create even though you’re not so sure where you’re going. Give yourself the time and grace to be messy, to discover, to revise. I’d like to think that the point of life isn’t to be perfect or to be the greatest; it’s to find what speaks to our hearts. And that’s something AI can’t tell you.
