"Did You Write This Yourself?"
AI, Suspicion, and the Erosion of Literary Authority
Before Suspicion: The Privilege of Starting Before AI
I was lucky. I started writing twenty-five years ago, at a time when artificial intelligence was still science fiction — not a shadow hanging over every paragraph. I published columns, essays, film reviews, travel tips, short stories, novels... If I had to guess, I’ve written over two million words — with flaws, with excess, but also with a voice I slowly built over time, testing sentences, stumbling over adjectives, occasionally nailing the rhythm. If anything sounded artificial, it was only because I hadn’t learned how to do better yet.
Today, that luxury feels almost anachronistic. Whenever a sentence flows too well, when the structure is too solid, or the tone too polished, the question arises — sometimes spoken, often implied: “Did you write this yourself?”
Someone asked that recently about a blog post of mine. The critique wasn’t about the argument, or even the content. It was about the style. “It reads like AI,” they said. And for a second, I felt offended. But then I was just perplexed. Because what they were calling artificial was exactly what took me decades to build: a clear, well-paced, thoughtful text without pretension. A few years ago, it might’ve simply been called “well written.”
It wasn’t an algorithm that made the text “sound like AI.” It was time. A new standard of distrust — not triggered by machines, but by our own uneasy relationship with them.
And I do feel for anyone just starting out. Not out of pity, but recognition. Because from now on, we’ll never really know who wrote what. Even if someone did write every word themselves, it may not matter. Doubt is the new default. Text has become a gray zone. Authorship, background noise.
That may be AI’s most profound impact on literature: not replacing the writer — but undermining trust in writing itself.
The Present Tense: Confusion, Suspicion, and the Rise of Hybrid Writing
In the graduate program I’m currently in, this topic lingers in the halls — and sometimes in the silences. Professors who once praised AI's potential now hesitate. Others, who never trusted it, are now forced to confront the fact that students are increasingly writing with “help” — though no one quite knows what that means anymore.
We’re all in uncharted territory. And no one — absolutely no one — knows where the line is. Is it okay to ask for help structuring an argument? What if AI rewrites a paragraph you already drafted? What if it suggests a better title, or a sharper conclusion? At what point does collaboration become cheating?
The truth is, we’re entering — irreversibly — an era of hybrid creation. Every text will be, in some way, touched by artificial intelligence. Idea generation, structural suggestions, stylistic revision, coherence checks. Some will use it lightly. Others heavily. But no one will be entirely untouched.
And the implications run deep. The most obvious: the erosion of literary authority. When any text could have been assisted, the name on it loses value as a marker of authenticity. It’s no longer about who wrote it — but how it’s perceived.
Prestige, once tied to authorship and content, is now increasingly tethered to something far more volatile: ethos — the public persona of the writer. The logic of the influencer now governs the logic of writing. It doesn't matter how much you wrote. What matters is whether people believe you did. Or more precisely: whether they believe in you, not as a writer, but as a recognizable figure.
This changes everything. Writing becomes less about demonstrating competence, and more about sustaining a persona — and hoping it holds up under scrutiny.
AI as a Real Tool for Real Writers
Strange as it sounds after all this talk of decay, artificial intelligence may be one of the best things to ever happen to serious writers.
For the first time, a beginner isn’t alone. There’s something — or someone — to read your draft, flag inconsistencies, suggest better titles, propose a more cohesive tone. A partner who never gets tired, never judges (unless asked), and is always available — even at 3am, when you’re staring at a paragraph you think might be bad, but you’re too close to know for sure.
Anyone who’s written seriously knows how valuable this is. Because writing is, above all, rewriting. And rewriting requires feedback. It demands a second set of eyes. For a long time, that kind of feedback was a luxury — reserved for those with editors, workshops, or generous peers. Now, it’s a prompt away.
AI doesn’t replace creative work. It doesn’t cure writer’s block. But it can help you sort through chaos. Offer directions. Turn on lights in what looked like a dead-end hallway. It can even say — with brutal honesty — “this part is weak.” And sometimes, that’s exactly what you need to hear.
For serious writers, AI isn’t a shortcut. It’s a tool. Not a crutch, but a lens. Like any good tool, it doesn’t think for you — it forces you to think better.
The fear that it will “replace” writers is partly projection. AI will only replace those who already wanted to be replaced. For the rest of us — those who love sculpting thoughts, obsessively reworking form — it’ll be an ally. Cold, yes. But tireless.
The Degrees of Use: From Suggestion to Full Delegation
Not all AI usage is the same — and we need to accept that with some composure. There are degrees. Nuances. Intentions. The tricky part is: none of that is visible from the outside. But from the inside, every writer knows there’s a world of difference between asking for a better title and outsourcing an entire manuscript.
Maybe it’s time to map these levels — not as judgment, but as a diagnosis of our new textual ecosystem.
Level 1: The writer does everything, and uses AI only for spelling or grammar — something we’ve done for decades with Word.
Level 2: The writer asks for suggestions: synonyms, a punchier title, ways to organize early ideas. AI is a consultant, not a coauthor.
Level 3: AI gets more involved. The writer drafts, AI rewrites, the writer rewrites the rewrite. A creative ping-pong match — but the human still has the final say.
Level 4: The draft comes from the machine. The writer provides the theme, tone, or concept — and AI generates the first version, which is then curated, cut, reshaped. Authorship becomes editing — which, sometimes, is just as powerful. (Think Raymond Carver and Gordon Lish. Carver’s minimalism is largely Lish.)
Level 5: The entire piece is generated by AI. The human just signs it — or doesn’t.
These levels aren’t rigid. A writer might move between them depending on the type of text, the deadline, the mood, or the stakes. Most people will likely hover between Level 2 and 3: not purists, not frauds — just hybrids.
And maybe that’s what unsettles the nostalgics the most: authorship, as we knew it, is becoming opaque. Not invalid — but ambiguous. And soon, that won’t be the exception. It’ll be the norm.
The End of the Solitary Writer (and the Nostalgia of Neo-Luddites)
We’ve long cherished the image of the solitary writer — locked in a room, candle flickering, surrounded by yellowed pages, wrestling with the world one sentence at a time. A romantic — and slightly masochistic — vision of writing as sacred, solitary labor.
Maybe it’s time we let that image rest.
Because let’s be honest: no one writes in a vacuum. Every text is a dialogue. Every writer has interlocutors — dead or alive, human or artificial. The difference is, before, they lived in the margins. Now, they’re in the prompt.
Using smart tools to draft, revise, structure, or even co-write isn’t necessarily unethical — it might be the next evolution in creative practice. The question isn’t whether someone used AI, but how. What did they do with what the tool gave them? Was there a genuine act of thought behind it — even if mediated?
Some will resist. They’ll say the only “real” writing bleeds. That a book must be born in agony, with no assistance, fingers raw, soul in shreds. And to them, I say: enjoy your nostalgia. And maybe your Twitter account.
But the new reality is already here. Texts will be increasingly hybrid. Authority will be increasingly symbolic. What matters less is who wrote it — and more, how you're perceived as an author. Ethos will eclipse logos. And style, no matter how polished, will always be read under suspicion.
We’ve entered the age of writing where even the best-crafted sentence invites doubt.
And yes, this text was written with the help of an AI.
It helped me structure, rewrite, and revise the piece — based on my own ideas, arguments, and voice. The breakdown of AI use levels was developed in collaboration with the AI itself — which, by the way, has a name: Milton.
Acknowledging this partnership doesn’t undermine authorship. On the contrary — it makes it more honest, and more attuned to the times we live in.
Because writing today also means knowing with whom — or with what — you’re writing.