By Samira Jafar
Special to The Times Kuwait
Whenever I tell anyone that I do not use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to write, I get met with a long list of why I am wrong: it is efficient, it helps with research, it streamlines the process, it makes editing easier, etc. I usually simply nod through these conversations, interjecting my opinion occasionally but not to the fullest extent. Why? I don’t find a point in arguing about it.
People who are pro-AI are set in their ways, just like I am set in mine. It is a matter of personal preference, with moral arguments made on either side, which in turn is the product of a few different things—how much time is on your hands, what kind of personality you have, and maybe, most importantly, what writing means to you. Thus, this answer will vary depending on who you ask. Some people believe it is fine to use AI for research, but not to actually produce content. Some people believe it is fine to allow AI to produce content for you, from A to Z. Some are completely against it in any way, shape, or form.
A recent debate about AI was sparked amidst the week of Oscar nominations for 2025. The Brutalist and Emilia Perez, two movies from A24, were both the most nominated films this year. However, both directors admitted to their use of AI. Adrien Brody’s Hungarian accent in The Brutalist was not on par with what they were expecting; thus, they used AI to fix his accent. AI was used to translate the script of Emilia Perez from English to Spanish, which is why, when Zoe Saldana is meant to say, “de nada” (you’re welcome), she instead says “bienvenido” (welcome). This is a mistake that even a novice Spanish speaker like me is painfully aware of, and one that disrupts the overall experience of the film, taking you ‘out’ of the frame to wince at how outlandish it all is.
Despite outcry from film aficionados, Adrien Brody won Best Actor in a Drama at the Golden Globes for his role in The Brutalist. Many voiced the same (valid) question: how can someone be the best if they cannot accomplish the job of a good actor, which is to nail an accent that is not your own? Furthermore: why is a film about a tortured artist set against an architectural backdrop that was made by AI and not actual crew members?
People had arguments that were in support of both films, mainly that AI is what allows independent film studios such as A24 (which, is, indeed independent, but is in no way, shape, or form a ‘small’ or under budgeted studio) to compete with bigger film studios. The whole event seems like we have turned art itself into a joke, which we definitely have. We are merely regurgitating the same argument that has been made against artists since the beginning of time—this is not a real job, you have no real transferable skills, and you will become obsolete in the future.
The future is here, now. Excerpts of ChatGPT prompts are found in self-published contemporary novels. Readers (justifiably) run novels through AI detectors and report back with results. Their points about this are valid; if you are going to ask people for money in exchange for your art, you need to be vocal about the part where it was partially produced with the use of AI. And people are unwilling to pay for it. People have moral qualms against watching it. The vast majority of people are indifferent, but when the stakes are high, you will meet people who are opposed to the use of AI in art.
Do not get me wrong: AI is a very beneficial tool. AI is used to advance new discoveries every day in engineering and medicine. It does, however, also come with its downsides, from environmental to ethical to legal concerns. But aside from the sciences, AI is being pushed onto authors and artists every day. Googling ‘self-publishing’ will have you leafing through pages of results on how to use AI to write your book.
On Instagram, so many writing workshops are touted as having ‘changed the participants’ writing skills for the better, only to do some digging and find out it is a completely AI-written course. AI is not just everywhere; it is masquerading as something that it is not. Nowhere on these websites does it say that these courses are AI generated. Authors often do not want to admit to using AI in their novels. Which begs the question: if it is the future, why are you ashamed of it? Why is there no real transparency with what is going on?
There are never-ending debates in the literary space about what using AI means for authorship, intellectualism, and creativity. In Sofie Vlad’s article, Texts Without Authors: Ascribing Literary Meaning in the case of AI, she argues that works written partially by AI should be labeled as ‘No Author’: “I have identified two main problems with ascribing meaning in the case of AI-generated texts. The first comes with most forms of intentionalism that rely on the presence of an author for a text to acquire meaning. In the case of AI, there is no author to which we can defer. The second problem lies with conventionalism’s inability to account for meaning on a metatextual level.”
Her argument stems from the fact that when AI produces content, that content is a regurgitation, in part, of all the inputs it has been fed before. Therefore, when an author produces original work, the meaning of that work stems from a thought that is not inherently or always intertextual, because it could be sourced from something internal within the author. In contrast, when AI is used to generate content, that content is always intertextual, which means we cannot contribute authorship to it.
This debate is happening in part because there are no clear boundaries placed on AI. Whenever we input data into ChatGPT, that data is used to perform a task for someone else, and so forth. Think of it as the equivalent of you telling your friend to keep your secret, and then they tell everyone you know.
So, as a writer, there are questionable ethics surrounding the use of AI. Even when it comes to research, there are difficulties with being able to rely on it and trust it fully. Many times, ChatGPT has incorrectly responded to prompts. This doubles your due diligence as a writer to have to go back and fact check whatever you are writing. This is because ChatGPT does not exist to necessarily give you the ‘right’ information; in part, the technology is not really sure if the information it is feeding you is right or not. So what we perceive as efficient actually increases the amount of work you need to do.
Furthermore, research is all about the process of writing. Writing, to me, is ‘lived work’; not necessarily in the sense that it is factual, but that it is a whole process, that includes seeking out answers, looking at different opinions, and leaning into a story the way you would if it were real life. This stuck out to me in the ‘Acknowledgements’ section of Intermezzo by Sally Rooney: “The writing of this novel required some research into both the practice of law and the game of chess… I would like to express my gratitude to the Chess Society of Trinity College Dublin and to its members. Their responses to my queries about contemporary competitive chess and tournament formats were truly generous and helpful. Any factual errors remaining in the text concerning law, chess, or any other matter, belong to either the novel’s characters or me.”
To me, this is the essence of writing. It may take years, but Rooney interjected herself into the essence of what she was writing about. And it does not have to be perfect. No one reads Intermezzo looking for factual perfection. But we are looking for art, for humanity, and for lived experiences. So why, then, are we concerning ourselves with what is most efficient, and taking the labor out of a laborious process? It does not produce anything that is necessarily ‘better’ or higher quality. In fact, many times, the opposite is true.
Writing is labor. It is a labor of love. Writing is the process through which we feel so many things and jump into the lives of many diverse fictional characters. Research is part of that process. Mistakes are part of that process. When I go online and look at articles about film and music for my short stories, I enjoy the process because it exposes me to so many ideas and artists, I would not have looked for otherwise. When I watch films, I am exposing myself to emotion, colors, and a medium I am not familiar with, which, in turn, helps with my own writing. When I talk to people about their lives hoping they will influence my stories, that comes from a place of humanity.
Capitalism has taught us that quickest and cheapest equates to the best. Capitalism has consumed the ways in which we think, perceive, judge, and work. And AI is being injected into these processes with lightning speed. But we are forgetting the most important facet of capitalism: only a few will ‘make’ it. Capitalism is not designed to keep space open for everyone.
Writing is a difficult process. Being able to use AI does not mean it will be done well. The over-saturation of authors and writers producing easily digestible content will make that content completely undesirable in the long run. Not everyone can do it well or do it to the point of success.
Back to the point of Adrien Brody: not everyone can be an actor, let alone an actor that gets paid millions of dollars per project. It takes those years of perfecting the accent, doing the research, and putting in the work. There will be ways, in the future, to distinguish between these forms of art.
Lastly, I write because I love it. I want to disconnect from the dystopian world we live in. I do not want to get it done quickly. This is my hobby. We are so discouraged from doing anything these days that does not generate income. I use Canva to create graphics for my Substack posts, but I do not express myself as a graphic designer or call myself one.
Writing is a part of me, and I do not want that process to be given to someone (or something) else. Using AI to write, to me, is like having a robot do your knitting for you, when you only took up knitting to relax. This is my perspective because writing is a personal process, and my opinions will be different from yours. That is okay. The key to all of this is transparency, and whether or not that will be solidified or codified in the coming years will be interesting to see.
Samira Jafar is an English instructor at Kuwait University.
She is the author of two collections of poetry. You can reach her at
@samirawritesstuff on instagram or
samirajafar.substack.com
