It takes our jobs.
It drives our cars.
It twists our minds,
And it’s coming for our art.
It’s watching, listening, learning.

It dumbs us down, 
By penning our essays, 
Plotting patiently to
Topple our novels,
Eclipse our verse,

And we let it.
Look around at the
Head-down zombies,
Sleepwalking algorithmically,
Overdosing in their ideologies.

Call me a Luddite, 
Gripped by a hysteria 
Akin to the laughable 
TV fears of yesteryear, 
But it’s crossed the Rubicon. 

Forget HALfunction
Or Skynet destruction.
This is how it ends: 
One app at a time 
In an anti-social media, 
Machine-generated whimper.
—Stuart Bush-Harris, “The Gradual Redundancy”

I hate AI, my animator friend said a while back. We’d been discussing the threat it posed to his industry. “Hate” is such a strong word, but deep down I felt the same. As a writer, I’ve spent years researching, crafting and editing my stories—twenty years for one novel—all that time taken only for it now to be done at the click of a button.

I can’t escape it as a teacher, either. The tools are at their fingertips, embedded within word-processing software. Some do not even know that they are using it. Cases invariably add to the workload and, at times, to stress levels.

So, over the last few years, AI has been chipping away at my career, my life goals and, to a degree, my mental health. Perhaps you can see why I feel so strongly about it. I’m sure many people feel the same way.

During a spell of techno-depression, I considered the invention of the camera. Painters at the time must have despaired, having spent a lifetime mastering skills, striving for realism, only for the camera to do it instantly. Despite this, they didn’t mope for long. Great artistic movements rose from the ashes of realism: expressionism, abstract art. I rallied at this realisation. Perhaps AI could push writers to diversify, innovate—to create something great.

Unfortunately, AI isn’t the humble camera. If it was, then it would be a camera that could capture not only realism but expressionism and abstraction and anything else it wanted to.

AI is different, and yet the arts and education sectors seem to be frozen in its headlights or adopting policies of appeasement. There are, however, glimmers of hope.

Academic institutions are beginning to respond to the challenges that AI presents by reverting to handwritten assessment (The Guardian).

Platforms, such as Substack, now have options to block generative AI from training on their content. Find out how and use them.

Thankfully, most publishers state that they won’t accept AI-generated texts. In fact, a major publisher recently withdrew a novel due to suspected AI use (The Conversation). The author was, apparently, a victim of their editor’s use of it. As a result, they’ve become a sacrificial lamb, but it has set an important precedent for writers, editors and publishers who are considering using it.

Furthermore, the Society of Authors in the UK has recently introduced a scheme for authors to register their human-created works (The Society of Authors). Other countries need to get on board.

So far, I’ve been very one-sided, but I don’t want to be an anti-AI bigot, blinkered to the possibilities, unable to make reasonable and ethical concessions, and so the question remains: Is there a place for it?

Well, those inescapable AI overviews make research so much easier… but try to click on the source links to visit the sites as, otherwise, it affects their traffic (Chase).

I can’t help approving of X’s chatbot, Grok, which can be used to fact check disinformation, prejudice and ignorance in real time.

I’m intrigued by the use of chatbots for philosophy assessment, in which students debate one-on-one with them, avoiding the spotlight effect of class discussions, or teach concepts to ones preconfigured to be ignorant (Licon).

I’ve wrestled with the idea of allowing my creative writing students to use AI-generated illustrations when creating picture books or graphic stories since they are only assessed on their written work. I probably would if they had limited drawing skills. I certainly wouldn’t advertise it to the whole class. I feel conflicted, however—complicit, even—just thinking about it. It’s a permission they take with them: no need to employ an illustrator nor a graphic designer.

I’m sure there are many other beneficial applications, too, for using it.

The AI-genie is out of the bottle, and it’s never going back in, but we must all do our bit to limit its wishes. Sci-fi and dystopian writers have a duty to extrapolate. Educators can do more to highlight the impact of using it on the arts. History has taught us that it’s futile standing in the way of such technological juggernauts, but in numbers, we can keep it on a tighter leash. The resistance isn’t some grand war. It’s about educating, regulating and, even, signalling—as simple as liking posts such as this, sharing them one at a time to gauge who’s going to make a stand where it matters.

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Imagine the smile on your face as you check the website results and see your story in the list: You, Stuart Bush-Harris, published at last! Then, picture it dropping as you notice that a “Shane Bush-Harris”—whoever-the-hell he is—has gotten the credit for it!

You learn a new word that day: misattribution.

A writer’s name is an essential element of their brand, an identifier for their writing. My first brush with publishing success was, naturally, a diluted experience. Despite this, I took no steps to correct the error. Instead, I considered adopting the pseudonym!

Rereading the story years later, however, my editorial eye saw flaws in the writing, so part of me, then, was glad that Shane had his name on it. Perhaps I should have left the story in obscurity with him.

Anyhow, here it is, the new improved version, by STUART BUSH-HARRIS!

Falter

The fisherman’s a Godless man, and even this won’t budge him. You haven’t got long, old boy, he tells himself, eyes to wrist—11.05. Fever, sweat, sun. They say remain calm. As if, he thinks, visualising the dual puncture wounds, so seemingly benign. Must reach road.

The fisherman strides through the rainforest with silent tenacity. Luminous mosses saturate his vision. Roots thread his path like serpents. Death lurks vulture-like in the shadows. 11.12. His dismembered T-shirt forms a makeshift compression bandage above his right ankle. One word is scrawled down his bare leg in permanent marker. ONE WORD. It could make the difference.

The landscape changes. Lush becomes barren, becomes flatter, dryer. Sun bleached grasses sway in the wind. A kookaburra cackles. Naked trees stand here like crucified forms. 11.27. He feels a perverse excitement at the challenge. Ahead, the trapper’s hut appears, a tree corpse fabrication. Come on! You’re almost there. Metallic mouth taste induces vomiting. 11.49. His gait deteriorates with inebriation as the road materialises like a desert mirage. A devil lies fused to the asphalt, flies feasting on its spilled intestines. He collapses in sympathy beside it, nose to the sky. Be saved or die, but still must I lie.

Car brakes screech. He hears footsteps and then a disembodied voice: “...lying in the road… a bandage on his ankle… something written on his leg… ‘Tiger’… snakebite!”

The fisherman wakes to the whiff of disinfectant, white coats rushing around, and puts his hands quietly together.

A version of this story was first published in the Tasmanian Microstories anthology as part of Tasmanian Living Writers’ Week.

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