Writing · AI
The dance of imperfection — what the radicals missed
And here, the full irony is worth stating aloud.
It's hard to imagine people wearing this "dog costume" for very long just to appease the harshest critics. I think the movement has a really solid foundation and a cool concept… but a total aversion — acting as if nothing produced by AI could possibly pass muster — well, I don't see a future in that…
Tomorrow, AIs will be better — it will happen in the blink of an eye — and what will the critics say about AI-generated text when it's already perfect? It's a glaring irony… It is like saying to AI developers: "Wow, you really fooled me — I didn't know AI models could evolve and eventually get better; I assumed they would remain forever limited and stagnant!" Consequently, the anti-AI radical movement is living on borrowed time.
But what did the radicals miss? That the clumsiest AIs of all time had something to teach us. No one stopped to look at the culture of errors and glean lessons from it; all they saw was text that was strange, artificial, and overly juvenile — mere "AI trash." Yet, witnessing AI's limitations was a beautiful thing for observers; it offered a learning opportunity for the participants involved in the writing process, allowing them to distinguish between profound, ironic text and writing that was superficial and less skilled.
The literary lesson was reserved for those who made the effort — while the critics missed out on a beautiful spectacle. They refused to step outside the culture of perfectionism — that "everything must be absolutely perfect for me to accept it" mindset — acting like a geisha declaring: "I will accept nothing less perfect — or less driven by perfectionism — than the ideal I have projected for what writing should be." These people never even tested the limits; instead, they missed a dance of imperfection — not perfection — unfolding right before their eyes.
They missed out on valuable lessons regarding literary writing, fiction, and other forms — failing to use imperfection as a springboard to improve their own human writing (recognizing that the human writer, too, is imperfect and in need of learning).
No one learned a thing from it. But AIs served as a testbed for the childish psychology of the mob — the AI witch hunt — and the culture of public shaming was once again proven to exist. It caused books to be dropped by publishers — with everyone, including the AI proponents, engaging in endless whining — while the demanding crowd insisted that everything be perfect and exactly to their liking. No one explained this part, right? But we are explaining it here.
After all, we were the ones who, in the midst of our work, felt offended by the radicalism — "hey, anything that comes out of AI is trash" — voiced by people who, for the most part, hadn't even tested the models or witnessed their beautiful dance of imperfection in the ballet of the times. The imperfection of AIs was a beautiful spectacle, a lovely thing to behold, and the radicals have yet to realize this.
A project that hadn't even left the drawing board was already being labeled — before anyone could take the time to judge, slowly or correctly, whether it was good or bad — as a work or book dead on arrival. This is highly irrational — and the most irrational among them, those who insisted on absolute perfection in everything, suddenly became the driving force behind this collective irrationality.
Of course, AIs can write poorly — they are still in their infancy. Yet the stance taken was: "I don't want anything written by AI." That was when it struck me that Shygirl wasn't just a book rejected by a publisher — even though that in itself could have been a marketing strategy. The real issue lay elsewhere: readers now wanted to dress writers up like dogs and make them do exactly as they pleased. Suddenly, writing with AI was seen as ridiculous, and only the readers' whims were to be satisfied by this "writer dressed as a dog." Ultimately, that is the greatest lesson we take from Shygirl. Puritanism has always been deeply ingrained in my thinking, but something even more significant was the realization that quality work deserves to be honored for its quality, while poor work warrants comment regarding its lack thereof — and yet, AI was capable of doing both. The very lack of quality often associated with artificiality and superficiality served as a trump card — a way to connect people with the instructive, almost wholesome idea that "hey, AIs aren't the enemy of writing" — they are simply… simple. And who doesn't enjoy simple stories, or the humble act of listening to a good tale? Even dogs appreciate a good fireplace; they lie down right beside it to get cozy. Ultimately, narratives, books, and stories — regardless of the method used to create them — should simply be engaging, much like those timeless, storytelling hearths that hold within them any tale worth telling.
Be more experimental — let your writing run free!