‘Writing in the time of chatgpt’, the AI ​​survival manual by Angela Padrone

Will artificial intelligence be able to replace human creativity in the field of writing? In the near future, will it no longer be necessary to learn to write correctly? Will novelists disappear? Questions which, with the increasingly massive advent of AI, are now on the agenda. Open questions answered by journalist Angela Padrone in her latest essay ‘Writing at the time of chatgpt’ published by Rubbettino.

“It is difficult – observes Padrone in the first pages of her book, a true AI survival manual, as stated on the cover – for us not to imagine that there is no ‘on the other side’ of a written sentence” someone’, a mind. Those phrases touch us in some part of the brain that we are not used to defending our innermost being? It’s difficult to convince us that words are powerful.” Words which, the author argues, will continue to be elaborated by men. A reflection that arises from the fact that, after years of decline, which began with the advent of television, today there is a rebirth of writing.

The ability to write and communicate – underlines Padrone – is an increasingly requested skill in the world of work: technical knowledge quickly becomes obsolete, while companies look for people who know how to organize a text, share emotions, describe an experience, motivate the others. And that they are able to learn new things. Artificial intelligence, which initially amazed and frightened the world with its ability to write, cannot do all these things. And not just because it’s banal or because it’s wrong: that will improve. But because it was created precisely to be predictable. He will never have the strength and imagination of the individual.

On the writing front, Padrone reflects, “we can try to resist. We must resist, and relaunch. We must continue to cultivate a technique of thought that has denied the pessimism that Socrates felt towards him, and which has demonstrated that it can bear formidable fruits “. This is because “writing is not only useful for writing essays at school. It is not only useful for journalists, who we must not do without in any case, because, even with their very great limitations, they act as a barrier to the power of the strongest”.

Angela Padrone, journalist, graduated in Philosophy at the Sapienza University of Rome. At university, after graduating, she dedicated herself above all to the study of Contemporary History and Cultural Anthropology. Then, after a Master’s in Journalism at Luiss, she joined ‘Messaggero’, where she remained all her life: she started as a reporter at the end of the ’80s, worked for almost twenty years in the Editors’ Office, and was for seven years deputy Central Editor-in-Chief. In 2022 he began collaborating as a contract professor with the University of Tuscia, where he taught History of Journalism and where he holds a Journalistic Writing Laboratory. He has published ‘Precari e Contenti’ (Marsilio 2007), ‘The Outsider Challenge’ (2009), ‘Imprese da Favola’ (2011). He contributed to the volume ‘Once upon a time the Welfare State’ (Rubbettino 2009).