Writing with AI in an Age of Literary Decline
Can AI support the kind of deep, meaningful literary thinking that David Brooks says we're losing—or is it part of the problem?
When You’re Too Tired to Write About Literary Decline…
I was tired today and a little curious, so my lazy self wondered how well an LLM could write my Substack post. I started with ChatGPT, because I have the pro plan on it.
I was intrigued by yesterday’s David Brooks column, which also led to an article of his from Jan 2024. Both of these discussed the decline of literary novels, which is dear to me, since that’s the type of writing I aspire to.
I gave ChatGPT links to my Substack posts, links to the David Brooks articles, an email I sent to David Brooks regarding the articles, and the following prompt:
I'm having trouble getting started on today's substack. Can you mimic my style and help me write a Substack based on the two David Brooks articles?I also turned on Deep research mode, so the LLM worked for a few minutes while I napped.
ChatGPT Tried to Be Me. It Got a Little Dramatic.
The result was largely unusable. Possibly usable if I edited it heavily, but that would cut in on the napping. The prose was over the top, and the intro made me sound like Batman.
For years I lived a double life. By day I was a cybersecurity expert and data scientist, by night an aspiring novelist. It might sound like a strange split, but straddling the worlds of logic and imagination taught me one thing: the humanities – especially literature – are not luxuries. They are essential to understanding ourselves and each other. In fact, it was a story that helped me survive the darkest chapter of my life.
So I switched LLMs and used the same prompt in Perplexity with the labs feature turned on. The LLM couldn’t access the New York Times articles because of a paywall, but it supplemented the gap with additional research, investigating YouTube and articles referencing David Brooks. (Perplexity cites all of its sources.)
Perplexity Had Better Research—and a Plot Twist
Perplexity came up with the following title and intro paragraph:
When David Brooks Meets AI: Can Technology Help Us Reclaim Our Humanity?
I've been thinking about two recent David Brooks pieces—one about the decline of literary fiction, another about culture making us better people—and I keep coming back to the same question: What role does AI play in all this?
I wasn’t actually wondering what role AI played in all of this, but now that it mentions it….
It also produced this second paragraph, which is mostly correct, and a spiffy graph.
Brooks argues that literature has lost its central place in American culture, and with it, we've become "sad, lonely, angry and mean" as a society. His first piece traces how literary fiction dominated bestseller lists through the 1970s, while today it's "largely Colleen Hoover and fantasy novels and genre fiction". His second piece suggests that consuming culture "furnishes your mind with emotional knowledge and wisdom" and helps us "enter sympathetically into the minds of their fellow human beings".
I’m not entirely sure where the data for the graph comes from. Apparently, we stopped reading literary fiction in 2015, so I question its accuracy.
What Brooks Got Right (And What He Didn’t Say)
Brooks isn’t writing about AI at all. The algorithm seems to blend (confabulate) my writing with the paywall-restricted Brooks articles. While Brooks doesn’t explore AI, the point is intriguing.
What Brooks Gets Right (And What He Misses)
Brooks is onto something when he talks about literature serving as "consciences of the nation, as sages and prophets, who could stand apart and tell us who we are". That role—helping us understand ourselves and others—feels more crucial than ever.
What he doesn't fully explore is how AI might actually help us reconnect with those humanistic values, rather than replace them.
Think about it: if AI can handle the mechanical aspects of writing—the grammar checking, the structural editing, the format polishing—maybe that frees us to focus on what Brooks argues matters most: the emotional knowledge, the wisdom, the deep understanding of human experience.
And then it gave me this great image with a hilarious caption:
The idea that AI can help us focus on the critical part of the message is from a post I made a few weeks ago. But the comment is valid. By helping with grammar, polishing, and editing, the LLM allows me to concentrate more thoroughly on the message. The following few paragraphs were spot on:
How AI Can Support (Not Replace) Humanistic Writing
Here's where my experience collaborating with AI gets relevant. In my own workflow, I've found that AI works best when it helps me think more deeply about human questions, not when it tries to answer them for me.
For example, when I'm stuck on a scene in my novel, I don't ask ChatGPT to write the scene. Instead, I might ask it to help me explore different emotional motivations for my character, or to suggest ways that a particular setting might reflect an internal conflict. The AI becomes a thinking partner—helping me dig deeper into the very human complexities that Brooks says we're losing.
The key is intentionality. When Brooks writes about Alice Walker finding inspiration in Zora Neale Hurston, he's describing exactly the kind of deep, connective thinking that good AI collaboration can support. Walker wasn't looking for someone to write her stories—she was looking for "a new way to see, a deeper way to connect to her own heritage".
The AI is very much my thinking partner. It doesn’t always think clearly, but neither do people.
Perplexity finishes with the following paragraphs:
The Craft-First Approach to Cultural Connection
This brings me back to something I've been advocating: a craft-first approach to AI writing. Instead of letting AI determine our goals (optimization, efficiency, viral content), we start with the human questions that matter.
What if we used AI to help us engage more deeply with literature, not less? What if we prompted AI to help us analyze the emotional patterns in novels we admire? What if we used it to experiment with different narrative approaches that might help us "enter sympathetically into the minds of" our readers?
Brooks argues that "unless you immerse yourself in the humanities, you may never confront the most important question: How should I live my life?" I'd argue that AI can be a tool for that immersion—if we're intentional about it.
Where We Go From Here
I don't think AI is going to single-handedly solve the cultural problems Brooks identifies. But I also don't think we need to choose between technology and humanity.
The writers I know who use AI most effectively aren't the ones trying to automate their way to productivity. They're the ones using it to explore questions they couldn't tackle alone—questions about character, about meaning, about what it means to be human in an increasingly complex world.
Maybe that's how we start to address the "dehumanizing effect" Brooks worries about. Not by abandoning the tools of our time, but by using them in service of the oldest human impulse: the desire to understand ourselves and each other through story.
What do you think? Are you finding ways to use AI that support rather than replace the kind of deep, humanistic thinking Brooks advocates? I'd love to hear about your experiments in the comments.
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Craft First. Tools Second. Always.
I don’t think I’m ready for Perplexity or ChatGPT to write my Substack posts for me. But I liked how it found my voice and developed a thread that I hadn’t considered.
That’s the advantage of AI for writing: it opens perspectives, considers new angles, and frees me to think.
To quote Perplexity, “What do you think? Are you finding ways to use AI that support rather than replace the kind of deep, humanistic thinking Brooks advocates? I'd love to hear about your experiments in the comments.”
And here are the book links for today!
From an Amazon review:
In Anna del C. Dye's "The Roilden Stones of Elf Mountain," expertly narrated by George Tintura, the elves of Andoriah face a critical choice between liberty and monarchy as a power-hungry wizard threatens their world. Dye's writing skillfully unfolds a tale of stolen Roilden Stones, a deadly drought, and the quest for heroes to save their realm. With a perfect balance of action, heroism, and romance, this fantasy audiobook is a compelling journey that will leave listeners enchanted and eager for more.
Review
Alex Kingsley's brain is a swashbuckler, flamboyant, effortless and never where you think it will be. Beautiful monsters, complex, flawed, intensely lovable characters and a sense of humour as wide-armed and inclusive as it is dark eyed and incisive. Brilliant stuff."
-Hugo-nominated writer Alasdair Stuart
I'm not sure Rome fell because they weren't reading enough literary fiction, but nevertheless, Indy says you can borrow his Batman collar if you need it for anything. He says you probably look better in a cape, what with having shoulders and all, but he's got those ears. Hard for even David Brooks to argue with that.