We Refuse it: A Manifesto on Generative AI Writing

By Douglas Groothuis, PhD

Preface: We the Writers

As writers, we are compelled to protect the authenticity and integrity of published writing in the age of generative artificial intelligence. We, as human beings, have labored to write books, articles, editorials, reviews, and poems. These works flow from our knowledge, experience, and passions. We are servants of the Word, who lives (John 1:1-5). We have spent much of our lives learning how to research, write, rewrite, and edit our work. We have invested ourselves in our craft and many of us have mentored other writers. We understand both the inspiration that sometimes comes and fatigue of pounding out prose drop by drop. We have felt the flow of ideas as well as the headwinds of writer’s block. But we persevere because we are writers who must write and writers who love as writing.

Our Principles

We care passionately about integrity in writing, because truth counts forever. Therefore, we document our sources; we avoid plagiarism; we avoid trite cliches; and we aspire to write clearly and truly about what matters. Some of us started writing on typewriters, then moved to primitive word processors, and now mostly write on sophisticated word processing systems. But we must fight off myriad AI intrusions, asking (or demanding) that we get “help” from AI. So, we try to ignore or disable—or go back to typewriters. But it is all terribly worse than that.

Invasive advertisements ask if we would like AI to “write our books.” This is the ultimate labor-saving device, we are told and sold. It is efficient and effective. It is a human-free but humanoid production of words. But it is not writing. This is not literature. This is forfeiture—the forfeiture of all that goes into our humanity as writers. We forfeit our minds, our wills, our discernment, our style, our mistakes, our joys and sorrows, and our boredom. We forfeit ourselves in the worst way—by self-betrayal, by literary suicide. We forfeit ourselves as authentic authors and pretend to write what we did not write and that which was not written at all, but only produced by a mindless textual machine. AI does much well, but it cannot write, and we must not let it master and denature us as writers. If text must be produced by AI, then let that be known and let no author’s name be affixed to it.

AI cannot read and it cannot write because it is not conscious, and thus it has neither will nor discernment. It believes nothing, feels nothing, and knows nothing. It is we human beings, made in God’s image (Genesis 1:26-27), who read and write because we are conscious agents who desire knowledge and its benefits—at least when we are at our best. AI scans data and produces text. It is a machine. Some of it is impressive and some of it is even true. But we will not let that impress us as writers or replace us as writers.

We Refuse It

We refuse it. The machine will not manacle our minds. We will never affix our names to text that we did not write. We will not outsource our personalities to impersonal programs, no matter how efficient or convincing or popular or profitable. We will not bear false witness (Exodus 20:16). We will not trust AI “research” if we cannot verify the source. We will disable or ignore AI suggestions on improving style. We will not let AI “edit” our work, but will rely on editors. We will interact with them on our terms. We will not use AI to “clarify” or to “sound more academic” or to “sound less academic” or to “write at a graduate school level” or for anything. We will not use AI to merge or edit documents. We will do research for ourselves. We will not use AI to save time if in saving time we lose our literary souls to AI.

We will teach others these commitments by precept and by example. As teachers, we will ban AI in the writing of our student’s papers. We will not use AI to grade students papers, since it knows nothing and can write nothing. We will evaluate our students work for ourselves. We yearn to teach students to develop their human potential in humane and personal ways, not to become technocratic text generators. We leave that to those who sell their souls to the Machine, God help them.

We are the beneficiaries and stewards of a great literary tradition of knowledge, most of it tracing back to the Judeo-Christian tradition. Students need this knowledge and this knowledge needs students to carry it on, as Sir Roger Scruton has written. We, the humans, have learned to think and write by reading books, by taking courses, by talking to people, and by writing books, articles, reviews, and letters. We are not about to trade in this blessed patrimony for the onslaught of AI slop.

Therefore, we refuse the literary suicide of AI. We will not forfeit our souls to the Machine. Join us, the human writers who must remain human in our writing.