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My Dream of Being A Writer Is Under Threat
AI may be a useful tool. But it’s creating uncertainty about my future as a writer.
AI is threatening my life-long dream of being a writer. And I feel sad and enraged about it.
I have wanted to be a writer for as long as I can remember. As a child, books were my refuge from the societal trauma I experienced from existing in a Black, female, neurodivergent body. Books allowed me the opportunity to imagine what it could be like to inhabit a world where people weren’t hated, fetishized, or feared for their skin color, secondary sex characteristics, or brain wiring. At times, books served as friends when I didn’t have any as they didn’t ignore, mock, or judge me for things about myself I couldn’t control.
However, I also got the message early on that I shouldn’t expect to support myself by putting words on paper. For one thing, as a Black woman, hardly anyone would care about what I had to say. Because the dominant society considered me unintelligent and inarticulate, anything I’d put on paper was likely to be ignored or demonized by them. For another thing, the world didn’t respect writing as an art form and few people earned a stable living from it.
As I came from a working-class background, my family didn’t believe it made sense to go into debt to pay a hefty college tuition only to not have job…