AI Hasn’t Even Begun To Mess With Our Reality

Photo by Art Lasovsky on Unsplash

Name. Date of birth. Occupation.

The first time I put down “writer” on an official form, I oscillated between pride and insecurity. I wanted to be a writer since I was seven years old. “Writer” had been my first answer to the question of what I wanted to be when I grew up, and the one I never wavered on. Before I considered —and gave up on —being an archeologist (I was obsessed with Ancient Egypt), a historian, a diplomat, and then a filmmaker, I wanted to be a writer.

Twenty-two years later, there I was, paying my bills from my writing. That made me a writer, didn’t it?

It also potentially made me a fraud — or at least I felt like one (hence the insecurity). Sure, I may have been paying my bills with my writing, but I wasn’t really a writer, was I? Surely, there were hundreds, maybe thousands of writers more skilled and more successful than I was. Writers who were recognized not only by audiences but by other writers as well.

I quickly discovered I wasn’t the only writer who suffered from insecurity. Feeling like a “real writer” is a big issue in online writing communities, and for some, the search for external validation can be never-ending. Now, six years into my writing journey, I’ve grown a lot more confident. With every piece I published (and every form I filled out), I solidified my writer identity — just in time for AI to threaten it all over again.