It is not uncommon nowadays for us to mistake AI for reality. But it is worse when we begin to mistake reality for AI. How often have you read an article written by someone only to exclaim, “That looks like ChatGPT”?
I remember recently posting a review about a book I enjoyed on social media. One of the most common comments I received was that the review was “AI-generated”. It was only when someone came across my older work that people realised my language had been the same even before AI. This is a privilege that comes with age; having a body of work that is mine and mine alone, a reference point that shows I am still creating, still writing, despite the presence of AI.
We are facing a storm of judgement, doubt, and cynicism that is killing creativity at its very roots. I know people who used to write short stories but no longer post them because they fear no one will believe they actually wrote them. Mediocre writing still passes off as human, but beauty in expression, in art, prose or poetry, is now being judged as machine-made.
Wouldn’t that be the greatest loss of humanity to AI? If we stopped congratulating ourselves on our own creative brilliance simply because something feels too perfect to be human?
I, too, have fallen for this. When my teenage daughter recently showed me an essay she had written on two artists, I fell in love with her thoughtful expression, her knowledge of both artist and musician. But what I said next broke her heart and mine. “This looks like something inspired by ChatGPT,” I said.
She looked up from her notebook and quietly said, “The topic was given to us in school. We only had a pen and a book. No internet. No AI. We all chose our own artists and wrote whatever we knew.”
What I meant as praise for her perfection became an accusation. I realised then how easily we have come to doubt human intellect or brilliance. If we have witnessed centuries of creativity, human ingenuity, how can we suddenly credit it to AI?
We must acknowledge that AI is here, that not everything is as it seems, but we must also recognise that creativity still exists. People will continue to make beautiful films, write poetry, essays, and books without any Artificial Intelligence being involved.
We must remember that the process of writing itself is therapeutic, as is the process of creating art. For a writer or an artist, the act of creation is sacred. It is a meditation, a slow unveiling of the self through words, colours, or sounds. The journey is what sustains the spirit; it is where healing happens. Missing out on that journey, outsourcing it to an algorithm, does not preserve the artiste, it erases them.
This is why true artists and writers will always choose to create on their own. It is not resistance to technology; it is fidelity to the process. The brush in hand, the cursor blinking on an empty page, the frustration of the imperfect draft; these are not obstacles but integral parts of creation. They are what make the final work alive.
When lab-grown diamonds first entered the market, people said real diamonds would lose their value. For a while, they did. Eventually, scientists built machines to tell them apart from natural ones. That is what we need today. Clearer ways to identify AI content. AI-generated content is like a lab-grown diamond; it sparkles, it shines, but it lacks the pressure and transformation that make a real diamond what it is.
We must balance technology with restraint to retain a world still filled with wonder and awe. Shortcuts now exist, and so we assume everyone takes them. This constant disbelief weighs heavily on creative minds. When someone loses weight, we assume they took shortcuts. When someone creates something extraordinary, we assume they didn’t do it themselves.
We need to change this.
If you use AI for a creative article, say so. There is no shame in that. The next generation may use machine learning as a legitimate art form. That will be a new kind of creativity, beautiful in its own right, so long as it is honest. Let AI be a medium, not a mask. Let us preserve clarity and offer credit where it belongs.
We owe it to ourselves, to our children, and to those who still create art for art’s sake. Because if incredulity turns into cynicism, that will be the true death of wonder.
The writer is a health psychologist, author, and creator of podcast Detangle by Kinjal, where she explores various nuances of psychology
