It's official. I am human.
Saving my creative brain in the age of AI.
I’m Bel Lopez, and this is Story Doula, a newsletter exploring why we tell stories and how we stay connected— with our communities, with each other, with ourselves.
It feels Orwellian to write this, but I thought you should know: I’m a human. This is being written by a human being. Me. Bel. And now, I’m certified!
Proudly Human is a new organisation set up to verify that works by artists, writers, composers and other creators are of human origin. It uses proprietary AI tools to detect the use of AI.
“Isn’t that hypocritical?”, Proudly Human’s FAQ section of its website asks, rhetorically. They answer (themselves):
“Not at all. We aren't anti-AI. We are pro-human. We acknowledge that AI has a place in the world and people may want to use AI for many things. We believe that people should be informed so they can make a choice about whether they want human-created content and services or AI-generated content and services.”
In the same month that Google turned away from climate goals in pursuit of AI and The New York Times reported the growing backlash to AI, I reached out to Proudly Human (honestly, every time I read the name, I feel like I’m in the middle of a sci fi novel. But we’re already here).
After a very undemanding verification process, I can now warrant that all my work as a writer is and will be of human origin (if the typos weren’t already a giveaway).
I’ve signed up in solidarity and also with curiosity, to watch where this all leads. I like the idea of being the control group in the experiment- and to see how I hold to these convictions within myself about wanting my work to remain human- made. Will it all age terribly? Will I regret this? Will my half human, half database in the cloud great grandchildren laugh at their primitive grandmother and her backward, earthly ways?
To be honest, I find Proudly Human’s terms for the use of AI in creation quite generous. Their de minimis standards allow you to use AI to generate titles, ideas and story concepts, as well as research and checks. For years, earlier iterations of AI have saved me months of transcription and translation work for my documentaries and research, and that’s within the standards allowed here.
Read: How to save your creative brain in the age of AI
“The legendary music producer turned creative guru Rick Rubin writes in his book The Creative Act that creative moments come not from within us, but from “a wisdom surrounding us, an inexhaustible offering that is always available”. He calls this The Source. “An integral part of the artist’s work is deciphering these signals,” he writes.”
I wrote about AI and the creative process in a piece for the wonderful local newspaper The Illawarra Flame.
For those interested in finding out more, I heard about Proudly Human via Peter Lewis, the writer and analyst who announced in The Guardian a couple of weeks back that he was the first Proudly Human-certified columnist. He wrote in his (new and proflic!) Substack outlining the certification process:
I feel something in the air, a growing momentum against this polycrisis of AI, and authoritarianism and setting fire to our beautiful earth, and towards something different. And yes, a trademarked symbol with a smiley face on my little substack isn’t going to bring on revolution. But it feels good to tell you where I stand.
Bel
Send me your reflections, suggestions and critical feedback to notes@belindalopez.net. If you’re reading this over email, you can also hit reply.