Quest for the human voice

When I look at social and other media, I keep wondering whether we have become the sorcerer’s apprentice.

The thought takes me back to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s poem The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. In it, a sorcerer leaves his apprentice to complete his chores of fetching water. Tired of carrying water himself, the young man uses magic he does not fully understand and enchants a broom to do the work for him.

At first, the solution seems ingenious.

Then the broom keeps carrying water.

And keeps carrying water. And more water.

The apprentice realizes that he knows how to start the magic, but not how to stop it. Soon, water floods the house.

Eventually, the sorcerer returns and restores order.

I see something of the sorcerer’s apprentice in all of us. We “summoned” artificial intelligence because it could make difficult, repetitive, and time-consuming work easier. And it does. That is precisely why the metaphor works. The broom is not the problem. The problem begins when we use powerful tools without fully understanding where they may lead.

In writing, we have already entered strange territory. We accuse excellent writers of using AI simply because they write polished prose. At the same time, people can use AI without disclosing it, and their AI writing may go unnoticed. We now question authenticity itself.

You might even wonder whether I really wrote this text. (I did).

Goethe gives us the comfort of a sorcerer who eventually returns, speaks the right command, and restores order. I am not sure we have one.

Who, exactly, plays the sorcerer in our version of the story? The technology companies? Governments? Educators? Writers? All of us?

Or perhaps no one.

That may be the real dilemma. We have become very good at summoning the broom. We are still figuring out how to live with it.

In this often artificial world, I seek the human voice.