I ain't reading all that
My Facebook friends no longer read human-written work. When will the literary scene catch on?
Is it okay to be book-shy if you grew up in a one-parent household and have ADHD? It is a question that few are asking. But, as always, little-asked questions are on the chattering class’s mind—and for several weeks, a literary world maelstrom has raged about whether reading is classist and ableist.
It has been interesting to witness this debate alongside my Facebook timeline, which is currently filled with two things: AI news stories, and jokes about an Ohio mom who brought weed to Bali and is now facing four years in prison.1 The latter happening is unique. But the former is not. Each time I open a newspaper or Substack.com, I see the literary world tying itself into knots over various faux controversies. Then I go on Facebook, where I see many people within my own world sharing AI writing. That is if they are sharing writing at all.
Let me situate myself. I grew up in a racially and socioeconomically diverse area. Of my childhood friends, I am one of few to attend both private university and graduate school. I “work in tech.” I have fellow writer friends, but I am not part of any organized literary scene. I tried to get involved with my city’s, but there were only so many readings I could handle about diasporic longing/having a casual sex problem/alcoholism delivered in flat affect by “leftist” anti-woke middle class writers who did a service job once and won’t let you forget it. I do not speak for everyone, but I can say with confidence that I speak from relatively outside the arts.
Thus, as someone who straddles the world of the chattering and the world of the living, I have a question of my own: is the literary scene in touch with reality?
The question of literacy’s classism and ableism—or lack thereof—is one of many literacy-related debates that seem to overcome the literary world bi-monthly. To be clear, I am not anti-critique or anti-conversation; these things make life worth living. But within these endless debates, I have rarely seen acknowledgement of the following: over half of writing on the internet is AI-written. Human writers are outnumbered. Many people are not even reading our work. Similarly to how I cannot take Sabrina Carpenter seriously even though she is obviously very famous, many writers struggle to take seriously the fact that many people read more work written by AI than by humans. The difference is that I know I am out of touch with reality. I am not sure if the literary world possesses the same self-awareness.
Many writers harbor a fixation on the uselessness of AI—its hallucinations, falsifications, and patent emptiness. They comfort themselves with the irreplaceability of the human touch. I agree with these sentiments. But AI could never get better than it is now, and its impact will remain catastrophic.
I am a tepid optimist: though technology addiction and education system failures are systematically depriving us of critical thinking skills, I think anyone is capable of literacy if they set their mind to it, and more so if they are communally supported in the pursuit. For instance, black America possesses an extensive tradition of at-times clandestine literacy cultivation—an example of an oppressed class developing literacy against all odds. But particular literacy-prohibitive structures exist that did not even three decades ago. How do we instill in children the desire to read human-written work and write their own when they are educated by schools in state-induced decline, algorithms and AI? Children are attempting to “zoom in” on books. Do you know what will not fix that? The literary world’s triannual content cycle about David Foster Wallace, interspersed with takedowns of the Flavor of the Month, Dimes Square (…), DEI, and the general public’s media illiteracy. “People must learn to read because reading is important” is an oft-murmured demand that should in fact be a prayer. The Western world—already increasingly illiterate—is now inundated with AI text delivered by addictive platforms. The question is no longer whether people are able to engage with challenging work, but whether the challenge will even reach them.
In ten years, who will want to read? Will they want to read idiosyncratic human-written work? The literary scene thrives on criticism. But what happens when few people even engage with the work about which we write? Given many schoolchildren’s complete dependence on AI, how will we ensure they go on to support human writers—or become them?
Writers must reevaluate our place in the world that exists, for we are not returning to the past over which many wax poetic. Though launching a literary magazine is noble for the sake of art, it is not making a dent to my many Facebook friends who think Zendaya and Tom Holland got married at Lake Como and are six months pregnant. And these friends come in all stripes. Many are working class—a group that many writers idolize and claim to write on behalf of. Many are middle class, like many of these said writers. And some are upper class. Of course they are! Literacy has long been and will remain a skill most accessible to the elite. But as even Ivy League professors and students have attested, the AI flood does not discriminate—students at the United States’ most elite universities also submit AI-generated work.
One’s ability to read and write does not grant one superior intelligence, as a glance through Substack and The New York Times will attest. On this point, most of my AI slop-sharing Facebook friends are not idiots. But no, I do not believe they often read or place a high premium on human-written work. And they’re definitely not reading your 10,000 word soliloquy about how they’re addicted to their phones and should be studying The Phenomenology of Spirit instead (which you still have not finished). If you thought nobody appreciated your overwrought passages now, the future is not bright.
When confronted with these possibilities, I have perceived amongst some writers a tendency to give up. To wish for one’s work to serve as a testament to decline—ruminations on a falling civilization authored by a witness to its death throes. Romantic. And also useless. We must ask ourselves what matters more: being pretentious or reality? This does not mean to stop writing, nor to only write things that are easy to read. But we must see the world for what it is and engage with that world, rather than engage with interminable debates about nothing.
AI will not disappear. Its intellectual impairment of the masses will only worsen; its content will continue to proliferate. Human writing thus matters existentially, as it always has and always will. But the future does not look anything like the past. We must stop banging our heads against the walls of a rapidly shrinking room. Let us leave the room, go outside, touch some grass and get to work.
Further AI reading below:
Hi Hilde. I read your piece. I wish there was an answer to this. Is reading classist? What fosters early childhood reading? 4 of my 5 children read early and deeply. Now I’m not sure any of them but one (my high school drop out bless him) read for pleasure. Do they scroll social media? Yes. Do they listen to podcasts? Yes. Which consumes hours of their time. So they could make the choice to go to the library like they were raised and start reading again.
I don’t read as much as I used to (I’m 58). I listen to audio books while I do chores, or even stand at my desk and work at my paid job. I find my attention span shorter for reading paper books. And I was raised in a world before phones where we all read (even the poor farm kids) all the time.
Mostly as an old person I’m profoundly sad about what is happening. I don’t know how to stop it. I don’t know if I am just another old person grieving a past to which one can never return (like all old people of every generation) or if I am grieving something more profound. I’ve wondered about the older generation who watched the introduction of Television change the culture. Or even the older generation who saw the introduction of electricity. I suspect those Esther’s of those generations also thought the sky was falling. Is that comforting to me? Not yet.
Side note. I’m not on FB and I am embarrassed to say I’m not sure I can pick out AI writing. Which scares me.
I think being bored is a skill and losing the ability to endure boredom means it's harder to enjoy anything. Reading is a quieter, slower task that *does not have to be* boring and often is not--if people can make it past the distractions and dopamine seeking of faster activities. Overall it's definitely a cultural issue-- I hope that with enough push back people will retreat away from AI/phones in general (as I type this on my phone 🥴)