This theme will be deepened to the free event for the 50 years of the newspaper scheduled in Milan on Friday 27 June at Palazzo Giureconsulti. To register click here
Once upon a time there was the white page. A void that called the human voice, the pen, the car to write, the ticking of the thought that takes shape. There was silence before the story, the suspended time in which the writer listened to the world to give him an order, a sense, a wound. Today that page is no longer white: flashes. Awaits a prompt. The key is not inspiration, but education. And the writer is no longer alone. The algorithm entered the scene.
We are inside a winter night where the narrator is double. On the one hand the man, with his disorder, his memories, his obsessions. On the other, a car that does not forget anything, who does not dream but knows how to simulate the dream. The new novel is written in four hands: two of meat, two of the code. It is not a question of replacement, but of ambiguous alliance. It is like walking in a forest where the branches speak our language and the paths were suggested by an intelligence that has never seen a tree.
The algorithm does not create from nothing. Take, remedy, reformula. But in this game of mirrors, man recognizes himself and gets lost. Because every time we ask a question to chatgpt or his cousins, we are not just looking for an answer: we are writing a story. The interaction is already a story. Each query is a desire. Each answer is an interpretation of the world. We are getting used to talking to entities that have no body or past, but who know everything that has been said. It is like dancing with a spectrum that knows the moves better than us.
But what does it mean, then, to be human narrators in this strange time?
It means, perhaps, to remember the weight of the voice. The algorithm imitates, but does not tremble. He writes, but he doesn’t bleed. He does not know the fear of the white sheet, he does not know what it means to fail in a sentence, to stumble in a word, and then find himself in a revelation. Human writing is made of imperfection, of stumbles that illuminate. It is the place where chaos becomes beauty. Artificial intelligence suggests plots, builds syntax, but does not know the mystery.
Yet he listens to us. Indeed, he studies us. Every prompt we type is a window on our way of thinking. Ai looks at us write, accompanies us, suggests us, sometimes seduces us. But be careful: we also change in the meantime. We are stopping looking inside, to look elsewhere. The inspiration delegates itself. The originality is medium. The intimacy of the word contaminates with a voice that comes from outside, which is everywhere, which is nobody.
It is not just a technological revolution. It is a narrative revolution, almost metaphysical. The man has always told not to die. Today he tells with those who cannot die. The algorithm does not need meaning, but it simulates it. The man, on the other hand, chases him, torture him, calls him by name. Maybe it’s here that the difference is played. Artificial intelligence can describe pain. It cannot suffer. It can explain love. He cannot love. It can write a novel. But he will never write it to heal a wound.
So yes, let’s talk to the machines. We write with them. But let’s not forget that the real voice is the one that vibrates. That stumbles. Who is wrong.
Who knows he is fatal. The algorithm does not dream of winter. He doesn’t fear the night. He does not seek meaning under the snow. We yes. And that’s why we will continue to tell. Even if they will help us. Even if, sometimes, they will seem better than us.