Reading in the Age of AI
Another Activity Whose Demise Has Been Greatly Exaggerated
Last year, I published an essay about the gratitude and about the humility which literature ought to (and often does) inspire in us. Once again, it seemed appropriate to reflect upon reading (and writing) at the time of year dedicated to honoring that which has been passed down to us.
This year, I wanted to turn to the ever-present debate surrounding whether the latest technological developments (in this case, natural language generation, of which one example is ChatGPT)1 will spell the end of a tradition – the written word – which has enriched the human race beyond our ancestors’ wildest dreams.2 What bothers me most about the debate is the striking ingratitude and know-nothingness of the “our grandchildren won’t learn to read or write” crowd. Setting aside the obvious rejoinder that at least some niche of writers and readers will exist forever, in the same way that there are hobbyists still making their own bows and arrows from scratch, this argument that our grandchildren won’t bother with the written word demonstrates a shocking disregard for one of the most important inventions in the development of civilization. More than all but a few other features, the written word separates human beings from animals.
If that sounds like an elitist argument, well, to some extent it is. A defense of reading and writing in the age of AI would be incomplete without a recognition of natural hierarchies. Some activities are more valuable, meaningful, and vital to the human experience, than others. Some art is “higher” and some is “lower.” There is great skill involved in acting and producing, and our greatest films are indeed works of art. But the average movie will never be as enlightening or as enriching to the human soul as the average book. And while the best films may indeed be said to be higher than the worst books, the book is a higher form of art than the film.
A defense of reading and writing needs to build upon that recognition, because the strongest case for why reading (and writing) must remain a part of the human experience going forward, despite their increasing lack of usefulness in the marketplace due to technological advancement, is that when we give up on the written word we lose something as a species that we can never replace. When we decide that our grandchildren won’t need to bother learning to read or write, we condemn them to a cultural impoverishment and we deny them something deeply meaningful.
In some ways, it is far more elitist to fail to recognize that. Only in places where literacy has been common for a very long time are books taken for granted. It is usually middle and upper-class citizens in the developed world who suggest that their grandchildren won’t need to read or write. If they asked citizens in the developing world, they might get a different answer. Global literacy rates have been steadily rising for centuries. The last thing we should want to do is to reverse that trend by taking it for granted.
The futurists who (often gleefully) prognosticate the demise of the written word believe that it only has instrumental value: only the information conveyed by the words matters, and that information could be conveyed in any form. And yet nobody believes that reading the sheet music of Beethoven’s Ninth is the same as listening to a symphony orchestra perform it. Nobody believes that listening to the Iron Maiden song, “The Trooper,” is the same as listening to someone recite the poem which inspired it (Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade”). Why should we believe that someone who has ingested an AI summary of Pride and Prejudice won’t be at a disadvantage compared to someone who has actually read the book?
The Soul:
Reading literally anything engages the mind in a way that images on a screen do not, because our minds are forced to translate the symbols on the page into words, which convey meaning and become thoughts. Because images more directly transmit information and emotion, our minds do not have to work as hard to engage with “visual content.”
But there is more to reading and writing than mental effort. The Book of John begins, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1, KJV). It is no accident that the written word of holy texts plays an integral role in the major world religions from Islam to Judaism to Christianity to Buddhism to Hinduism. It is no accident that close textual analysis plays a key role in fraught theological debates among the varying intellectual traditions within those faiths. At bedrock, this demonstrates a belief in the power of words, a belief that words mean something, and that what they mean can be the most vital and important information in our lives.