It’s an AI World We Live In…

As a proud overthinker, overdaydreamer, overfantasizer, oversleeper, I’m constantly in my head. Sometimes, I have these crazy ideas that I just need to share. But everyone is so caught up in their own lives, and it’s not always easy to talk to them.

So I write. Everything I think about in a day, everything I see, it all pours out of me eventually. And it’s usually on paper.

Writing is how I express myself in a body where my mouth won’t open. In a body where my brain is running 10,000 words a minute and my tongue can’t keep up. It’s my lifeline. That one thing I can do for hours, make mistakes, mess up completely, and not give up.

A few days ago, I learned that AI has been stealing from published writers. They download and scan books to train their technology with, and the writers don’t get a penny.

And I got really, really mad. These big corporations are cheating authors and getting even richer off of it! These books that take years to create are being leeched off of to give ‘creativity’ and ‘skill’ to robots!

As my mind was still reeling from all this new information, I read this post from a friend of mine, Isabelle Knight, saying that she was considering going on strike. “If I don’t publish anything, they can’t steal it.” That was her reasoning—and, yeah, it’s valid.

But… something just didn’t feel right to me.

I’m not writing for money or fame. Sure, I fantasize about going to book signings and watching my book become a movie or TV series, and I’d never turn down an opportunity like that. But even if I knew that I’d never make a living off of writing, I still wouldn’t stop. Why?

Because I love writing, more than anything else. It makes me who I am. It brings a smile to my face even when I’m sad, and it has me up until twelve on a Sunday night even though I know I’ll be dead tired in the morning.

If I never shared my writing, and I mean any of it, the fun would slowly but surely disappear. I wouldn’t have a blog. I wouldn’t have a writing club. I’d never publish my book, and all the urgency and excitement would drain from my body until my characters freeze up, suspended in awkward, unfinished sentences.

‘Leah Larkspur’ would fade away. There would be no more notebooks and hand cramps and ink-stained fingertips. When something sad or exciting or infuriating happened, what would I do? Would I write then? Or would I hold it inside, with no characters to transfer the feelings to?

To stop writing, that wouldn’t be a solution to this AI problem. It would be the end of who I am. If publishing my work—if sharing my work—if that means Meta AI taking my creations for their own greedy business, then so be it.

Nobody can take writing away from me. Not now, not ever.

—Leah Larkspur