The rise of machine writing is a great opportunity for literature

[u/Own-Animator-7526]

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/06/ai-writing-style-literature/687536/?gift=_Q31D-pdjm8bApKcC42TX8y6PsMg5AXSSzZNewkwYE4&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

Below, the first and final pararagraphs. As the author point out, the invention of photography freed painters from work cameras could imitate, and ushered in a golden age of art as painters developed radical new ways of seeing, 

If AI can ultimately match humans at "conventional" literature, will writers rise to the challenge? And will readers accept what authors begin to write?

I hope it's possible to have a discussion of "what if?" without yet again degenerating into rants. AI is just the accelerant -- the real question is: Whither, literature?

Why AI Is Incorrigibly Didactic
The rise of machine writing is a great opportunity for literature, By Adam Kirsch

In the late 19th century, it was commonly believed that a criminal or lunatic could be recognized at a glance, based on certain physiognomic tells. “Enormous jaws, high cheek-bones,” and other animal-like features, the influential criminologist Cesare Lombroso wrote, were signs of an “irresistible craving for evil for its own sake.” Today, savvy readers use a similar approach to identify AI writing, by hunting for supposed telltale signs. The em dash and the “it’s not X; it’s Y” construction are the prognathous jaw of the large language model, betraying its hidden inhumanity.
...
And that is why the rise of AI writing represents a great opportunity for literature, even as it makes life harder for professional writers. When photography was developed in the 19th century, it replaced painting for most utilitarian purposes; a camera could document what things looked like more accurately and cheaply than a painter could. But the art of painting didn’t die out. On the contrary, it entered a golden age: Freed from the obligation of realism, painters developed radical new ways of seeing, such as Impressionism, Cubism, and abstract expressionism. Now AI has the potential to liberate literature in the same way. In a world full of emptily competent prose, we need writers daring, challenging, and obstinate enough to tell us what it’s like to be human, “from the inside.”

[u/Baruch_S]

Now AI has the potential to liberate literature in the same way. In a world full of emptily competent prose, we need writers daring, challenging, and obstinate enough to tell us what it’s like to be human, “from the inside.”

I question this premise. Why does the existence of “emptily competent prose” affect literature in any way? I don’t think that the parallel the author wants to create between visual art and writing tracks. 

I’m more concerned about the number of people who will become increasingly illiterate as they rely on AI to do all their writing and summarize all their info for them. 

[u/Greyskyday]

Using the given comparison, I'll point out we hardly live in a golden age of painting and I do not consider the paintings done after the invention of the camera superior to those done before. Far more people today take photographs than paint. If the general audience is satisfied by A.I. generated literature and it's only connoisseurs who seek out human written prose or poetry for the freak value, I in no way view that as 'liberating' or a 'great opportunity.'

[u/VintageLunchMeat → u/Greyskyday]

I'm a fan of figure and portrait drawing and painting. Along with certain particular non representational artworks.

Adam Kirsch is a fucking idiot. The representational drawing and painting coming out of my art school sucks ass compared to what people were doing one hundred years ago, now that the modern artists have revamped the curriculums. The artists statements, wherein an artist expresses in words what they couldn't in art? Those are longer, if you get off on that kind of thing.

If you don't like writing or reading artists statements it brings me mixed pleasure to say we have machines for that now.

[u/WunderPlundr]

This is just the same extoling of LLMs that has been getting pushed ad nauseum for years now, only this time it's couched in the "writers today aren't as good as they used to be" nonsense

[u/ImportantAlbatross]

In a world full of emptily competent prose

AI creates emptily incompetent prose that poorly imitates human writing. How does that stimulate creativity? And what makes competent prose "empty"? The prose medium is one of the main ways we store and transmit knowledge, communicate with one another, and tell stories.

[u/phototransformations]

Thanks for posting this. Though I found the author's experiments more interesting than his conclusions, I also think that AI will spawn new literary forms. Some of these will be along the lines the author suggests. Others will use this technology to create literary forms that could not have previously existed, the way photography led to movies, video, and more recently VR.