Like only humans can

Delta was looking for a new student columnist. That raises the question, isn’t it time to switch to AI generated columns?

Working with humans is difficult. They have strong opinions, follow their own plans, and don’t always meet their deadlines. Generative AI is much easier. You feed the model a clear prompt and some documents and press a button. Voilà, a text types itself. A quick review and it’s ready for publication. It doesn’t get any simpler. Besides, TU Delft likes to be at the forefront of technological advances. An AI columnist seems like a perfect fit.

Yet they looked for a human.

It might just be in keeping with tradition: there have always been human columnists, so let’s stick to that. But there were always human columnists because there was no other option. Now there is, so there must be another reason not to seek a computer columnist. Do we humans have something to offer after all?

AI models already write better than many humans and are still developing. This dramatically changes the role of human writers. We can draw parallels with the effect of photography on painting. Until the advent of photography, most European painting was realistic. Images were rendered precisely and in detail; this was true even of mythological or supernatural creatures. But no painting could reproduce reality as faithfully as a photograph.

Now our job is to write what AI cannot write

So you might think that the advent of photography meant the end of painting. But nothing could be further from the truth. Instead, photographers and painters learned from each other’s expertise. Photographers learned about composition and light. Painters used photographs as input for their work. They also began to experiment with depicting things that a camera lens could not capture: impressions they gleaned from reality or their inner world. This tradition brought forth well-known painters like Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso and Frida Kahlo.

Thus, photography did not substitute painting but supported it. In a similar way, the development of AI language models does not mean an end to human texts, but a turning point. Now our job is to write what AI cannot write. AI may be able to write standard texts better and faster. But people can think beyond ones and zeros. We can toy with language and write something unexpected. Our opinions are shaped by more than just the usual word sequence.

We have another important thing that sets us apart from generative AI: personality. Although there are people who believe AI models have become sentient, for now we assume that this is not the case. Contrarily, humans are living, breathing beings with complex thoughts and experiences. Our texts are steeped in personality. That’s why I hope there will still be room for handmade texts among all the generated jabber.

For now, that room remains, at least in Delta. The search for new student columnists was successful. In the time to come, we will write a regular column on Tuesdays, as only humans can.