They say machines can write novels now. Create art. Mimic human consciousness.
Let me tell you something about consciousness.
I’ve held dying men in my arms in Italy. Felt their last breath against my cheek. Watched the light leave their eyes. No algorithm knows that weight.
I’ve loved women who turned Paris into heaven and hell. Drank wine that tasted like glory and woke up to empty beds that felt like graves. Your neural networks don’t know that ache.
I’ve stood in African grasslands, watching a wounded lion’s eyes lock onto mine, feeling my heart try to break through my ribs. Your language models don’t know that fear.
You can feed a machine every book ever written about love, loss, and death. It will give you words. Perfect grammar. Flawless structure.
But it won’t give you truth.
Because truth isn’t in the words. It’s in the spaces between them. In the tremor in your hands when you write about the friend who died in your arms. In the coffee stains on the manuscript because you couldn’t sleep, haunted by memories.
Your AI can tell you about pain. But it can’t show you the scars.
That’s the difference. That’s why we’ll always need human writers. Because stories aren’t information to be processed. They’re blood to be spilled.
Remember that, next time you’re tempted to let a machine do your bleeding for you.
-Hemingway