Image by Allison Saeng.

A.I. is asking us to reexamine our humanity.

It pops this question every time we sit down to write – whether we’re a high school student writing an English essay, a manager penning a business memo, or a screenwriter composing a script for an action film.

It asks: who is writing? Who is the writer?

It asks, too: who is the reader, the listener, the viewer? Who is the person, or persons, being written about?

Some years ago, long before the advent of ChatGPT, a Vietnamese spiritual teacher, poet, and activist named Thich Nhat Hanh described how he addressed these questions when he composed. In the mid-1970’s, he helped a committee for orphans in Vietnam by translating applications from Vietnamese to French. The committee was sending the applications to France, seeking donors who could help the children who were victims of the war there.

Each day Nhat Hanh translated about 30 applications, each consisting of a single sheet of paper that included a small picture of the child along with information about the child’s name, age, and condition. Nhat Hanh explained his process this way:

“The way I did it was to look at the picture of the child. I did not read the application. I just took time to look at the picture of the child. Usually after only........

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