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Who Wrote This?
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Who Wrote This?

How AI and the Lure of Efficiency Threaten Human Writing

Naomi S. Baron
Stanford UP, 2023
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Technology has been transforming literacy since the invention of the printing press. But today, AI is reshaping writing, reading, and authorship with unprecedented speed and scope. Linguist Naomi S. Baron provides a deep dive into the ways AI is changing how people read and write, and the implications for what it means to be human. Her exploration covers the historical roots of the quest for AI, research on the neuroscience of reading and writing, and more. Published in 2023, the book’s analysis of current technology will date quickly, but Baron’s arguments on the value of literacy and creativity are timeless.

Summary

By transforming the way people write, artificial intelligence is changing what it means to be human.

Machines have been imitating human writing since at least 1953, when Christopher Strachey, an English computer scientist programmed a Ferranti Mark 1 computer to pen love letters. Those missives weren’t particularly convincing, but today, advances in AI mean technology can competently produce a variety of written materials that used to require human intelligence: marketing copy, real estate listings, quarterly earnings reports, sports reporting, legal pleadings, and more. Writing has always been the realm of humans — until the rise of AI. As AI becomes increasingly capable of using human language, it’s altering perceptions of what it means to be human.

The widespread use of AI to perform language tasks that humans used to do also raises questions about the effects on humans themselves. When people fail to make use of their own writing capacities, they pay a price. Neuroscientists have found that writing changes brain function. For example, the caudate nucleus — an area of the brain responsible for higher-level learning, planning, and memory — is more ...

About the Author

Naomi S. Baron is professor emerita of linguistics in the Department of World Languages and Cultures at American University in Washington, D.C. She’s written nine books on language, linguistics, learning, and technology, including Always On: Language in an Online and Mobile World.

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