A novel, school writing, poetry, a love letter, a simple warning left on the refrigerator door. Would all these texts threatened by artificial intelligence (AI) tools be? In the evaluation of writer Sérgio Rodrigues, journalist and novelist, the loss of practice can result in an immeasurable setback for society.
In your latest book, “Writing is human: how to give life to your writing in time of robots”, The author defends the need for attention and stimulation of practice. Rodrigues, which launches the work in Brasilia next Thursday (18), argues that robots cannot match human characteristics, although there is the dangerous permanent improvement of generative technologies.
He says AI threatens professional activities, but the warning is also in another attention sphere. “More than the job market, I fear a civilizing and intellectual setback.”
Below, check out interview with the writer.
Brazil agency – How did the idea of dealing with humanization of writing come about?
Sérgio Rodrigues – The idea was to make a manual, a guide that would help the people who are starting, especially in the writing of fiction. I am a journalist, but I am a novelist and short story writer. That was the part that interested me explore. I had a blog called All -poundwhich was aired between 2006 and 2016. Some of the ideas of this book were born there. I deepened and rework. When this general artificial intelligence appeared, it caused a greater urgency. The book also gained a different focus. Creativity is the opposite of what artificial intelligence does.
I understand that [escrever com criatividade] It’s all the robot doesn’t know how to do. What the robot knows how to do is an incredible, impressive imitation of human language, but without any of the dimensions behind the true creative writing. There is no perspective on technologies to have access to it anytime soon, at least until you have an awareness of yourself.
The book deals with what it is to write with artistic ambition to make language the show itself. Writing is exclusively human, just as art is exclusively human.
Imitation of AI gets better and better. Soon it will be very difficult to distinguish. The fact is that I cannot conceive art without subjectivity behind it. Writing has to have a subjectivity of those who wrote. Everything else is an appearance, a falsehood, but not the essence of the business.
Brazil agency – This has immediate consequences in the labor market.
Sérgio Rodrigues – Some areas are very threatened in labor. AI can perform tasks that were exclusive to humans at unmatched speed, at a much lower cost. The human being is expensive.
Brazil agency – What are the biggest threats?
Sérgio Rodrigues – We are going through a revolution. The biggest threat I am seeing is the human being, as a species, to unlearn to write. It is a risk. You can outsource everything, all texts. From the purchasing list to e-mail. The moment you outsource and no longer use this measure, you forget. We are like that.
An example is that before we knew the phone numbers. Today we don’t know anymore. We outsourced the cell phone. When people outsource to AI the minimum writing of everyday life, you will forget how to write. Writing is a technology of thought. More than the job market, I fear a civilizing and intellectual setback.
Brazil agency – This writing you treat is related to all phases of life, right? The school newsroom, for example.
Sérgio Rodrigues – I think the school has a serious problem. If she is not careful, all students will deliver work done by artificial intelligence. If the school does not create an environment where it is severely controlled, writing ability will not be developed by those more children. We are facing a very large change of general parameters in relation to writing. And we need to cultivate this for the pleasure of writing.
Brazil agency “Isn’t the human being somehow on a way to robot with prior writing formulas?”
Sérgio Rodrigues – You are right. I think artificial intelligence takes a giant step ahead in this regard. But we already came on this way. But AI is a tool we invented. It continues a path that we were already walking, of a certain total superficiality of the ways of reading the world.
Not only the text. A lot of ready -made, clichés, formulas. The cliché is not invented by the machine. AI is a simulacrum of us. A form of cliché, of ready -made and made ideas. Our critical spirit was already defining. The school was not handling. I think, in part, it is a lazy species.
A population with a critical spirit is harder to manipulate. Critical people are less likely to become consumerists on the internet, for example.
Brazil agency – How can we convince the younger ones to write?
Sérgio Rodrigues – This book is an attempt to open people’s eye for what is happening. I think the school will have to rethink itself in order to create safe spaces for thought and writing. Spaces where the machine cannot enter. Finland, for example, took computers into the classroom. Now the country has banned all computers.
Brazil agency “This decision to get the children’s cell phone was important, wasn’t it?”
Sérgio Rodrigues – Very good. I think school is the place for that. But it will require a turnaround in terms of thought. I see no other way out.
Brazil agency – Does the lack of reading means difficulty with writing directly?
Sérgio Rodrigues – It has an impact on reading interest. A summary of “Dom Casmurro” (work of Machado de Assis in 1,899) is not the same as reading the book. It’s like seeing a TV adaptation. You have an idea of the story, but the literature reading experience is vertical. You need to dive into those words. Maybe we really lose the ability to read things is even much simpler.
Agência Brasil – To write a love letter, for example?
Sérgio Rodrigues – The person will wonder what to do. Given what the loved one says, he will wonder what to do. Lack of writing and reading makes the person lose the tools he had to deal with each other.
Brazil agency – In addition to the role of the school, how can families convince younger ones what writing is human?
Sérgio Rodrigues – Families play a role in this. The family needs to read and also value it. I hope it’s not too late. The people who are excited. AI may be a tool, but it cannot be the master or owner of the person.
Brazil agency – What can managers do who may feel responsible for trying to generate public policies?
Sérgio Rodrigues – The public policy challenge today in this AI world is regulation, which is where the heaviest lobbies in capital has. And the big techs are very determined not to let any regulation be done.
