Why I Won't Use AI-and What That Means for Working Writers
I won't ask Copilot to draft my emails. I won't feed prompts to ChatGPT to outline my work. That's a line I'm drawing for my craft, my ethics, and the kind of writing I want to sign.
The pitch for AI is speed. The costs are hidden: resources, culture, and the steady erosion of voice.
The hidden resource bill
AI runs on data centers that burn serious power and water to keep hardware cool. Some sites use up to five million gallons of water in a single day-enough to sustain a small town. Energy demand for data centers (and AI on top of them) is rising fast, with obvious climate implications. See the data here: IEA analysis on data centers and networks.
More energy use often means more emissions, depending on your grid. Air pollution and greenhouse gases aren't abstract; they track with asthma, heart disease, and lost years of healthy life. If we care about the planet (and our lungs), we should care about the scale-up. The science is clear: WHO: Air pollution and health.
AI "art" isn't new-it's a remix of your labor
These tools generate images and text by pattern-matching across massive datasets built from existing work-often scraped without consent. The output is a composite of other people's effort dressed up as something "new."
Every free prompt siphons demand from illustrators, photographers, and designers. If you want a portrait, cover, or logo with soul, commission a human. Pay for taste. Pay for time. That's how an arts ecosystem survives.
Shortcuts that blunt the mind
Schools now add "Don't use ChatGPT" to syllabi-rules that used to be implied. Auto-summaries and AI-written essays skip the workout that makes thinkers: reading deeply, struggling with structure, and choosing words with intent.
Reading and writing build memory, reduce stress, and sharpen emotional processing. Strip away that practice and you don't save effort; you outsource growth. Add the cost of policing plagiarism and tool misuse, and thin budgets get thinner.
Workplace reality: connection beats automation
Reports, invoices, and emails look "routine," but they're vehicles for trust. Generic AI copy might save minutes and cost relationships.
People ask writers for tone, judgment, and context-the human stuff. That's how influence is built inside an organization. If you hand that over to a prompt, you hand over your edge.
If you refuse AI, here's a practical playbook
- Define your voice: write a one-page style guide (sentence length, rhythm, banned clichés, guiding beliefs). Use it on everything.
- Build speed without outsourcing: create templates for common emails and reports; use text expanders and checklists, not auto-writers.
- Research smarter: set up RSS for trusted outlets, keep a quotes database, and tag notes so retrieval is instant.
- Read like an athlete trains: daily pages, margin notes, and short recaps in your own words. Your mind is the tool-sharpen it.
- Commission human art: keep a short list of local artists; write a clear brief (goal, audience, references, budget, timeline).
- Protect integrity on teams: add originality statements, do short oral defenses of key work, and clarify which tools are allowed.
- Measure craft, not clicks: track response rates, editing passes per draft, and time-to-clarity. Improve the writing system, not the prompt.
If you want a clear, no-hype overview of where AI fits (or doesn't) for our trade, start here: AI for Writers.
The line I'm drawing
AI isn't going anywhere. I'm choosing to keep my work human-my art made by artists, my emails written by me, my learning earned the slow way.
The goal isn't purity. It's meaning. If my name is on the piece, the words came from me.
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