AI Writing Is a Race to the Bottom

Almost no writer wants to give in to AI, but in the end most of us will have to

In one of his most famous essays, Meditations on Moloch, Scott Alexander writes:

Once one agent learns how to become more competitive by sacrificing a common value, all its competitors must also sacrifice that value or be outcompeted and replaced by the less scrupulous. Therefore, the system is likely to end up with everyone once again equally competitive, but the sacrificed value is gone forever. From a god’s-eye-view, the competitors know they will all be worse off if they defect, but from within the system, given insufficient coordination it’s impossible to avoid.

Collectively, we lack a mechanism to get ourselves, all simultaneously through some coordinated action, out of these slippery slopes. Alexander enumerates ten real-world settings that reflect this mutually harmful yet seemingly unavoidable dynamic, from agriculture’s Malthusian Trap to the Prisoner’s Dilemma, the paradigmatic example, to capitalism, the most ubiquitous one.

As a result of our insufficient coordination, any individual agent will always choose to take the selfish, self-beneficial — but other-harmful — path. Once the other agents, selfishly as well, follow the original selfish agent’s choice, everyone is again tied up but this time in a much worse situation. The process continues until it can’t get any worse.

That’s Moloch’s curse on humanity. If we want a better world where people are happier and wiser, where there’s no suffering and fairness and freedom rule, why are we surrounded by evil, Alexander asks, why haven’t we already gotten out of this situation that we hate so much?

Moloch does it.

AI writing is a Molochian trap we can’t escape

Thinking about AI-related instances of this I realize they surround us.

As Alexander says, capitalism is “a big piece of it.” Indeed, the rules of competition, markets, and profits govern everything we do and AI is also subjected to those rules (at least until it breaks us free with an overabundance of wealth that will surely be equally distributed because we always distribute stuff equally).

So, ultimately, we could blame capitalism for this.

But I don’t want to do such a shallow and rather useless analysis. Saying capitalism is responsible for all bad in the world is, to some degree, like saying the universe is the source of all evil. They cover everything, so the statement is trivially true.

I want to explore how AI, particularly language models in the form of tools that allow us to write easier, faster, and cheaper, is a Molochian trap.

From a god’s-eye view no writer would ever touch an AI writing tool but from within the system, oh — things look very different.

Sacrificing a writer’s dearest value

I wrote recently an optimistic piece entitled “How to Survive as a Human Creator in the AI Era.” The answer, for those of you who didn’t have the chance to read it: Tap into your humanness as much as you can. That’s solid advice even to compete against other humans (not many people know how to do this well) but not infallible in any case.

After I published the article, people told me that I should worry more (they had been telling me that before, too). I should worry because it doesn’t matter how good I am at writing, or how successful I eventually get, I will never be able to escape the damage radius of the ChatGPT explosion.

As long as I write for a living, I’m a potential victim of AI’s language mastery and its potential, perhaps not to replace me, but to shrink the opportunities to work as a writer.

There’s truth in that. AI can trivially copy famous authors such as Margaret Atwood or Stephen King (at least their style, superficially, but it’s not like most people care about more than that anyway).

I can write a Shakespearean sonnet — of decent quality for my non-expert eye — since the days of GPT-3 so it’s no wonder GPT-4 with the assistant-type enhancements of ChatGPT can do a much better job.

I’m no Shakespeare. Chances are you aren’t either. If he’s within the range of effect, we all are.

If I choose to live without worry it’s because I don’t think worrying about things I can’t control is wise. I know I can’t do anything about it: Some people have no intention to learn to write but all the ambition to earn a quick buck. Now that AI allows them to combine those two deadly traits seamlessly, there’s nothing that prevents them from flooding public blogs and social media with their AI-generated crap.

I feel optimistic not because those leechers aren’t a threat to me but because if I remain unwilling to leave my role in preventing the writing world from entering into an impending Molochian trap, I can stay hopeful that I’m not alone.

My optimism might not be grounded in facts as much as I’d like, though.

Writing is an art. It’s a passion. It is also, unfortunately, a market. It doesn’t matter how much art and passion you have in you, if you write for a living, you have to earn money.

And Moloch is there, waiting for you.

The competitive dynamics that rule the markets ensure that people take the safer routes while maximizing profits. But sometimes the incentives to make riskier choices in exchange for bigger rewards push us all down. In the freelance world, for instance, writers are often willing to reduce their fees to attract more clients, which in turn forces others to do the same.

That’s against one of the main rules of freelance writing: Know your value.

But Moloch is there, waiting for them.

Enters AI writing.

A much easier, cheaper, and faster way to write tons of text. Even if quality-wise it’s not there, many clients will take the chance to cut costs by paying OpenAI $20 per month instead of a human writer $1,000 or some other misery. That will force most writers to do the same and sell our souls to the AI overlords assistants.

Because Moloch is there, waiting for us.

Eventually, the market will stabilize again, with competition at a similar impasse as before AI writing.

But one value will be lost forever. One value will have been sacrificed to Moloch.

Human writing.