Once, several aeons and at least five years ago, I incorrectly surmised that the financial irrelevancy of my chosen career as a writer rendered me safe from the crunch of AI and Big Tech’s Terminator feet. But alas, the machines have finally come to us—the WiFi cafe stealers, the latte sippers, the people who have armed themselves in this capitalist world with nothing but their “interesting and well-rendered insights.”

Every morning, my phone screen lights up to more ill omens. OpenAI has exposed the rot at the core of the liberal-arts-degree factory; now, professors turn to AI tools to grade papers written by ChatGPT. A quick search of “how to use AI to write a novel” suggests several whimsically named tools and apps (Squibler! Sudowrite!). Novelists can now interview ChatGPT about just how soon the tool might be able to replace them, and ChatGPT can give flattering, dexterous answers. Writers (aspiring and not) could give AI models the following prompt and surely, it will spit something out: ChatGPT, could you suggest a good framework for a romantic early-20th-century spies-in-love novel, and could you make it combine the styles of Hilary Mantel, Patricia Highsmith, and Sally Rooney?

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The sun of the machine apocalypse has risen on the act of writing. All remaining scribblers should lay down their squibs and come out, squinting, arms aloft in surrender.

Well, I’m here to say that we can’t let machines write our novels. Why? Because unless someone told us we were reading a novel penned by AI, we might never know the difference.

Read More: AI and the Rise of Mediocrity

This might seem paradoxical, or provocative, but I mean both halves with my whole heart. Writers and readers need each........

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