Dreamer Easy

The author of Stasiland and Wifedom did not mince words when it came to “The wholesale theft of all writers’ books.” Her livelihood, along with that of every writing professional, has been stolen, ground down and fed to the machines that are supposed to replace them. She dismissed this claim neatly – AI operates by selecting the most likely word to come next in any given context. “Good writing and good thinking never puts the most likely word next.”

But for her, AI is just another salvo in the ongoing war on empathy, the “planetary power grab that is patriarchy”. No conspiracy is proposed – there is no need, when Mark Zuckerberg calls for a more masculine energy in business (on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, 28 February 2025), or Elon Musk claims, “The fundamental weakness of western civilisation is empathy” (on the same podcast, 10 January 2025).  But consider what this means for writing constituted as an act of empathy.

Through the anecdotes she so generously shared, the audience came to understand how telling and retelling a story can bind a family together, but also provide a child with insight into their parents, even decades later. And we, the audience, recalled parallel experiences from our own lives (probably not involving bears) and brought them to bear nonetheless, deepening the meaning and impact of what she said. For the basic act of empathy is to imagine oneself as another and stories are the most effective vehicle for this process. Writing well involves honing this skill through experience and time, and a program cannot duplicate it, no matter what prompt it may have been given (produce a story about the protagonist’s parents that will have meaning for the reader? Involve a large ursine?) Most readers and writers acknowledge this to some degree. On a personal note, speculative fiction is at particular risk from infiltration by AI, due to the mistaken belief that those who write it aren’t trying to achieve exactly the same thing.

“To see the unspoken and speak it is a creative act. It requires imagination to see who is missing.” And then, this woman who has interviewed survivors of East German prisons and Nazi death squads, said the most chilling thing she possibly could have. “We need courage.”