You teach writers to become more sensitive to their own reactions as a way to revise and improve their work. Given that AI can generate endless material to react to, could you see a way it might sharpen a writer's editorial instincts?
No—they can use their own work to do that perfectly well. The human mind can generate that "endless material" and, what's more, there's something germinative and essential in one's messy first draft—the mess the writer herself has made. There's some flavor in there unique to that writer's mind. So editing one's own text is more organic and beneficial than editing the text AI gives you when prompted. In other words, the way we prompt ourselves and then respond to that prompt is . . . the beginning of what is going to be unique about our book.
問：您教導作家對自己閱讀時的反應更加敏銳，以此作為編修和改進作品的方法。鑒於 AI 可以生成源源不絕的素材讓人反應，您是否認為這樣能磨練作家的編輯直覺？
不會。他們完全可以利用自己的作品來做到這一點。人類的大腦可以產生那種「源源不絕的素材」，而且更重要的是，在一個人混亂的初稿中，也就是作家親手製造的那團混亂之中，有一些正在萌芽、而且根本的東西。那裡有一種獨屬於該作者心靈的風味。所以，比起修改 AI 照著 Prompt 生出來的文字，修改自己寫的東西更自然，也更有收穫。換句話說，我們給自己下 Prompt、再對該 Prompt 做出回應的方式……就是我們作品獨特性的開端。
Even in that very first draft, you, the writer, are in there, inextricably and importantly. I would never want to sacrifice that. There's some important thought-contour present . . . inherent in the small errors and imprecisions your mind has seeded in that early draft. There's value in the writer, at that point, not yet being on the path but wandering around it. Your mess, worked on with your mind, produces something extra somehow: your mess has more you in it, that can then get refined, through revision, into something that is utterly you.
Honestly, it hasn't. I only teach grad students who have been chosen out of hundreds of applicants and are all obsessed with finding their own voices and discovering their own truths. They don't use AI in their work, for that very reason. They want it to be their work.
When I read a novel or story, what do I want? I want the writer's full experience, as expressed in the subterfuge of a made-up story. I want her life experience, her aesthetic feelings (and even biases); I want that subtle record, that is there in her prose, of every book she's read and where and when she read it, and how it subtly altered that younger version of her—how it moved her and changed the voice in her head—I want all of that, and I want it from a person. That's its whole value, that it comes from another person. She and I are in communication. I want to see what that person (who is the result of all those years and losses and ecstatic moments and so on) thinks about this world we share, and I want her to show me by making something up. I don't want anything else—not some sort of machine-averaged or -excerpted regurgitation of other people's words, no matter how fast or seamlessly this can be produced. It's amazing that AI can do that, but I'm not interested in it.
And I think it's harmful and dangerous to give over too easily this precious human thing called storytelling. Storytelling is something humans do, a human-to-human, highly advanced, nuanced code, a super-intelligence all our own. It doesn't work without two humans in it. And it's not a neutral decision, to give that up, but, like so many things these days, we seem to be doing it because . . . it can be done. ("I can make a drawing of a cat driving a snowmobile in the style of Rembrandt!" "I can make an album though I know nothing about music and can't play an instrument!" "I can redo my resume in 10 seconds!" "I can get a first draft of my novel by giving AI a rough outline!") But: Is it your resume? Is it your novel? Did you have a sufficient hand in it? Or did you just unwittingly sacrifice a precious chance at originality or idiosyncrasy that might have spoken, in some subtle and irreducible way, to the person reading the thing?
而且我認為，太輕易放棄「說故事」這個珍貴的人類特質是有害，而且很危險。說故事是人類彼此之間一套高度先進、細膩的符碼，一種我們獨有的超級智慧。沒有兩個人參與其中，它就無法運作。放棄它，並非一個中立的決定；但是，就像現在許多事情一樣，我們似乎正在這樣做，只是因為……這做得到。（「我可以畫出一張林布蘭風格、貓咪開雪地摩托車的圖！」「即使我對音樂一無所知，也不會彈奏樂器，我也可以做出一張專輯！」「我可以在 10 秒內重做我的履歷！」「只要給 AI 一個粗略的大綱，我就能得到小說的初稿！」）但是：這是你的履歷嗎？這是你的小說嗎？你有足夠參與在其中嗎？還是你只是無意間犧牲了一次展現原創性或獨特性的寶貴機會，而這種特質本可以透過某種微妙、無法被拆解簡化的方式，傳達給閱讀這部作品的人？
Anyway . . . it seems to me that we're doing this slow drift into AI-aided writing without the sort of serious public discourse that admits to the possibility that, just because we can do something, that doesn't mean we should; that there are activities that distract and lessen us and activities that bring us to live more fully in the moment we're in. We get to decide what to do with this precious human life, and we should make that decision with the utmost seriousness. And "declining" or "demurring" is a valid, sometimes wise, option.
Has it changed the problems and questions new writers bring into your classroom, or are the fundamental insecurities of becoming a writer the same as they've always been?
I think they're the same. Because my students are involved in the same old, honorable, ancient pursuit: trying to make up, out of their individual and idiosyncratic minds, a story that will speak to other human minds. AI can't play that game, de facto. (It can look like it's doing it, but it's not.)
I should say, though, that I don't teach undergrads, and I know that AI use is a big issue in that world. I'd make the same argument re undergrad teaching as I've made above, but I do realize that general undergrad students aren't under the same self-applied imperative to find a voice and are likely not as enamored of literature or as convinced of its value as my creative-writing MFA students, and therefore might be more inclined to take the easy path when asked to, say, write an essay about a work by Tolstoy.
Still, that choice represents a real loss to their education.
不過，我也應該說明，我不教大學部學生，而且我知道 AI 在大學部領域是一個很大的議題。對於大學部的教學，我也會提出與上述相同的觀點，但我確實意識到，一般的大學生沒有那種「尋找自己聲音」的自我要求，可能也不像我創意寫作碩士班學生那樣迷戀文學、或深信其價值，因此，當他們被要求寫一篇文章，比方說談托爾斯泰的某部作品時，可能會比較容易選擇捷徑。
儘管如此，這種選擇對他們的教育來說是一個真正的損失。
When I used to teach undergrads, I always tried to impress on them that language is power—not only because, through writing, one can learn to express oneself better and thereby empower oneself, but because there is something magical and transformative about working through a piece of writing, taking it from "blurry crap" to "precisely what I mean, and then some." We are now finding out that this is true neurologically: struggling through reading or writing a long-form piece does magical, essential things to one's brain, i.e. to one's essential personhood (see The New Dark Ages, by James Marriott [out Oct. 6]). So if I were still teaching undergrads, I'd attempt that sort of argument. But I'd say it in this creepy robot voice I can do, so they'd think it was AI saying it.
當我以前教大學部的時候，我總是試圖向他們強調「語言就是力量」，不僅因為透過寫作，人們可以學會更好地表達自己，並從中賦予自己力量，還因為深入完成一篇寫作，將其從「模糊的爛東西」提升到「精準表達我的意思、甚至超越預期」，這其中有著神奇且具轉化的力量。我們現在從神經科學上發現這是真的：吃力啃完或寫完一篇長文，會對一個人的大腦，也就是對一個人最根本的人格，產生神奇且不可或缺的作用（見 James Marriott 的《The New Dark Ages》，這本書會在 10 月 6 號出版）。所以，如果我還在教大學生，我會試著用這番道理說服他們。但我會用我能做的那種令人發毛的機器人聲音來說話，這樣他們就以為是 AI 在說話。
As a teacher of writing, do you feel a pressure to experiment with or learn about AI? Is it important to you that you can speak knowledgeably and specifically about these tools?
No. I think I know enough, right now, about the process of writing a story to speak knowledgeably and specifically about these tools.
問：作為一名寫作教師，您是否感受到要去實驗、或學習 AI 的壓力？能夠專業且具體地談論這些工具，對您來說重要嗎？
不重要。我對寫故事的過程已經夠了解了，光憑這一點，就足以把這些工具談得內行、說得具體。
By my definition of writing, writing with AI isn't. Isn't writing. One can do it, of course, and people are, and will—but it's not the thing that I love and have lived for. I want to be a person and speak to other people. End of story.
按照我對寫作的定義，「用 AI 寫作」根本不算。不算是寫作。人們當然可以這麼做，也正在做，未來還會繼續做，但那不是我所熱愛並奉獻一生的事業。我想做的，就是以一個人的身分，對其他人說話。就這麼簡單。
So I find myself mourning the collective loss of a certain ability, which is to be capable of saying: "Yes, that's amazing, but it seems destructive. Not only in terms of natural resources, but in terms of human capability. So . . . no thanks. I opt out. Just . . . no." (In the words of Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener: "I [would] prefer not to.")
The studies are showing it: using AI erodes our mental capabilities. Why do we want that? One feels that the answer has to do with consumerist momentum. ("But it's new! And easier! It's inevitable!") One also feels the pressure from above created by the trillions of dollars invested by hyper-rich people. AI is becoming, it seems, "too big to fail." But it's still (in my view) a big nothing in terms of artistic writing, since art is by people, for people, and reflects and is dependent upon the experience of having moved through (and heard and smelled and seen and had feelings about) the actual world. AI writing can't do that. It just can't. It can look like it's doing that but, by its nature, it can't be what we have always called artistic writing.
研究顯示：使用 AI 會侵蝕我們的思維能力。我們為什麼要這樣？人們感覺答案與消費主義的慣性有關（「但這是新的！而且更容易！這是不可避免的！」）。人們也感受到來自上方的壓力，那是超級富豪們投資的數兆美元所創造出來的。AI 似乎正在變得「大到不能倒」。但在藝術寫作上，在我看來，它仍然什麼都不是，因為藝術由人所創作、為人而作，它反映並仰賴人們穿梭於真實世界、在其中聽見、聞到、看見並對其產生感受的經驗。AI 寫作做不到這一點。它就是做不到。它可以看起來像是在做這件事，但從本質上來講，它無法成為我們一直以來所稱的藝術創作。
Now, I'm not saying it can't be impressive and sound like artistic writing. And I'm sure that a mind, put in front of a piece of AI writing, will do something—the reading will cause some sort of reaction in the brain. (Of course it will; a mind will react even when reading a phone book or a random sequence of words.)
現在，我不是說它不能令人印象深刻、或聽起來像藝術寫作。而且我確定，當一個人的大腦面對一段 AI 寫出來的文本時，會產生某種反應，閱讀會引起大腦某種反應。（當然會。大腦即使在閱讀電話簿或隨機排列的單字時也會有反應。）
But that's no big thing, the mind flickering in response to a text. It's the quality of the flickering that matters. We want a shaped flickering, a flickering that responds to authorial intention. We're looking for some indication of authorial wisdom, wisdom gleaned from life in the world, that shows up, sometimes in complicated and transmuted form, in the text.
But considering the source, and the process by which AI makes text, AI can't be originally wise—as I understand it, it can only recontextualize and reorder other peoples' wisdom. Maybe some people find it fun to be exposed to this—to me, it seems like a distraction, especially given that life is short and I still find myself in an urgent struggle to understand my own mind and express something beautiful out of that mind and all the things it has been through, something shaped by me, me personally, that will go out and move you (you, personally).
但考慮到來源以及 AI 製造文本的過程，AI 無法擁有原創的智慧，根據我的了解，它只能將其他人的智慧「重新脈絡化與重新排序」。也許有些人覺得接觸這些很有趣，但對我來說這似乎是一種干擾，特別是考慮到人生短暫，而我依然發現自己處於一種迫切的掙扎中，想要理解自己的心思，並從這個心思以及它所經歷的一切中，表達出某種美麗的東西，某種由我個人所形塑、能夠走出去打動你個人的東西。
And maybe the AI that is coming will be doing more than that recontextualizing and reordering—but it's going to be doing that outside the realm of embodiment. In a sense, that's what we have (and are burdened with) that AI isn't: bodies. Also, mortality, and all the anxiety that comes with it, and that feeling of being at a beautiful party that is ending, but no one can tell us just when.
也許即將到來的 AI 會做出比重新脈絡化與重新排序更多的事情，但它將會在「肉身」的領域之外進行。在某種意義上，我們有、而 AI 沒有的，就是身體。我們擁有它，也得背負它。還有，死亡，以及隨之而來的所有焦慮，還有那種身在一個正在結束的美好派對上、卻沒有人能告訴我們確切結束時間的感覺。
Imagine a remarkably human sexbot, that moves and talks and feels like a person and you have sex with that sexbot and it feels very real. Guess what you haven't done? Had sex. With a person. You haven't been approved of, or desired; you haven't given pleasure or satisfaction (or run the risk of failing at these). No matter how it felt, it wasn't real, i.e. the thing we all want. Remember what Raymond Carver said: “And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.”