Why We Read and Who Cares About AI

The passenger seated next to me on the train asked what I was reading: The Long FormThe Long Form by Kate Briggs. It’s a novel about a young mother whose baby is not sleeping, who begins reading Tom Jones, which then imposes itself and enters the discussion of their day. It’s a novel with essays (like Tom Jones), a novel about time, about novels, and of course about motherhood. “Oh,” said my seatmate on the train. “I’m reading the business book that everyone in my office is reading.”

I think we both felt a bit let down. We’re both readers, but our books don’t have much in common besides being written in English. Our tastes don’t match, but we’re still hungry to talk about books, and to connect over them. My seatmate on the train was reading that business book because everyone else in her office was, and she wanted to be part of the conversation.

All this was on my mind as my reading group, Rule of Three, discussed artificial intelligence a few months ago. Every third Thursday, we discuss a short story, an essay, and a poem, all based around a theme. Regulars requested that we have a session on Artificial intelligence, so I selected “Robot Dreams” by Isaac Asimov, “Poet Wrestling with {Artificial} Intelligence” by Rosebud Ben-Oni, and an essay from Wired by Virginia Heffernan called “Cow, Bull, and the Meaning of AI Essays.” We considered whether personification of AI is inevitable. We wondered, along with Ben-Oni, whether AI can have Keats’ negative capability (and whether most humans can). We pondered Asimov’s laws of robotics. And we discussed the definition of essays and whether AI will ever be good at “writing” them.

Someone asked me recently, since I’m a librarian and a writer, whether I’m worried about AI “writing” books. I’m not. At the moment, I’m not impressed by the writing AI has produced, though I do understand it will become more sophisticated as it “learns.” Nevertheless, asking whether AI writing will become popular or surpass human writing poses a question: why do we read? As a reference librarian, I know that sometimes we read for information: we read to understand a topic, or for self-improvement – maybe we want to learn a new skill to advance at work, or maybe we want to know our plant hardiness zone so we know when to sow crops (7a, in West Windsor). AI might do a good job in these cases, and give us the information that we need. But there are other reasons to read, and these reasons, I think, require a human writer.

We read to connect to ourselves and to others. We read the stories of other people, similar to us, incredibly different, real or imagined. We also read to connect with other people: this is why some people love book clubs, why my fellow train passenger wanted to read the same book as her coworkers and started a conversation (however disappointing) with me, and why some people read bestsellers. Books are things to think with, and things to talk with. In my reading group, people often say, “I didn’t love this piece, and so I can’t wait to talk to you about it.” That is also why we write, I think, or make any kind of art.

I’m not anti-AI in general (though I am concerned about its environmental impact), and this is not meant to be an anti-AI blog post. But this post is a shrug in the face of AI “writing.” I just finished reading Standing In the Forest of Being Alive by Katie Farris and started The Juniper Tree by Barbara Comyns. What have you been reading lately?

- by Corina, West Windsor Branch