[Disclaimer: This article is part of our April Fools’ Day issue.]
The life of a writer is no easy life. Simply ask Ernest Hemingway. We at The Miscellany News have grown to understand this. The combination of deadlines, the stress of writing and balancing our journalistic practice with our collegiate commitments is frankly one of the great struggles of mankind. However, with the rise of new technologies, a solution to this crisis exists. This solution is, as all great new technologies are, highly controversial. Nevertheless, in this essay, I will paint a clear and convincing picture of why and how we as writers can change The Miscellany News and change journalism forever by embracing AI.
I understand that at a woke-aholic school such as this one, the idea of using AI might terrify some. AI is hardly the most loved by the types who dominate this wonderful place, but this is because the people are poisoned by flawed and robophobic propaganda. Firstly, by embracing AI, we will be able to massively hasten the amount of writing the people can access. Do you all not want to read a lot? Is your biggest dream in life not to read The Miscellany News, to see your peers’ brilliance displayed before your very eyes? These are leading questions, but they lead us, like a hero’s journey, to a place of true beauty. In our coming embrace of AI, we will be able to reach new heights in our coverage of the world around us. A new era will be upon The Miscellany News, and we can bring this brilliance to the wider world of journalism. The speed of AI allows writers to simply give it our genius ideas, and let it do all the hard and, frankly, silly work.
Furthermore, AI will massively improve the arduous editing process. My comrades in the writing world can confirm the frustrating and stressful process that is the editors’ line. Sitting down in my parlor on a Monday night only to see my piece torn to shreds by random strangers I have never met, I question the use of it all. This is not even to begin to discuss the often meaningless nature of so many edits. I open a perfectly crafted piece, one which I spent untold hours upon, only to see a dozen comma changes. I mean, truly, do we not remember George Orwell, who said, “Ignore punctuation if needed.” Why then do I need so much advice on such trivial things? Or think of word choice, the endless differing opinions on one sentence, arguing day in and day out about something that is, for all intents and purposes, nothingness. AI would solve this horrible crisis with ease. By using tools like ChatGPT, we can perfect our punctuation and grammar to the point of never needing silly editors.
However, I wish to address my critics before they can come screaming into my inbox—beginning with the simply flawed notion that AI is unable to write to the level of any human. It may be true that the writers at The Miscellany News are excellent, being brilliant columnists and reporters, but the same is not true across the writing world. One look at the Bard Student Newspaper will confirm this. If you truly believe that AI could not write some of that, you are a lost soul who will never be found. If we simply give AI the right prompts, it can equal or perhaps even surpass our own brilliant writers. Not only this, but one day The Miscellany News may not be full of such brilliance. As the old adage goes, “strong people make good times, good times make weak people, weak people make hard times.” History has followed this cycle, and we are on the path to continue it. We are at the stage of good times, which will lead to weak writers. However, this can be changed if we embrace AI.
I, secondly, wish to address the issue of plagiarism we see so often discussed in the robophobic world. Many so-called “progressives” who hold anti-robot bias claim that AI being trained on real writers somehow makes things written by AI plagiarism. This is simply ridiculous. AI training is no different from the training we give to our students in schools. Is reading Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” not simply training us to write like her? When I read an essay from Leo Tolstoy, is this not a form of training? Are we not then all plagiarists? Of course not, this notion is absurd in every sense. To call AI plagiarism would be to call all writers who attempt to write scientific fiction, horror or any other preexisting genre plagiarists.
Finally, I wish to address the environmental critique. Firstly, regarding the issue of water usage. According to the brilliant and handsome Sam Altman, AI uses only “one fifteenth of a teaspoon” of water per prompt. In comparison, I see some people drinking three to four bottles of water a day. Who are you all to cry so much about AI yet drink so much water? Secondly, on the issue of data centers, frankly, who cares? Look at how much damage is done by oil companies, those jeans you wear or the iPhones you all love to use and then tell me I am a villain for making life better with AI. There is no question that the issue of AI is, like all big issues, complicated and nuanced. I understand this completely and do not hate my opponents. However, I believe they are naive. Our forefathers opposed TV and computers, and now we are making that same mistake. If we truly want to build a better world, and a better Miscellany News, we need AI. To achieve the editorial board’s goal of “Make the Misc Great Again,” we need AI.