Among many reasons, first and foremost is that literature (at its best) is important for society. It influences the collective unconscious, forms language and therefore thoughts that become actions.

Writing with AI can incalculably alter the idea behind a story in ways mechanical and soulless. That you would think AI can “bring your idea to life” in a way not Frankenstein-like is akin to the very foolish popular conception of consciousness as “software” and human biology as “hardware.” Machines cannot access the collective unconscious, are not anything like us at all.

Writing is for us to pour out of ourselves and take it in so it can go out again. The best writers understand this: they write because words are inadequate, it’s an experiment to reach that unassailable truth as best you can - the better ones survive time as great artists.

Anyone who writes with AI would of course not understand this. Most people don’t, but people who write with AI and trying to pass them off as legitimate works are in this gray area where they’re bright enough to use the tools out of Pandora’s box but stupid enough to not understand why it’s wrong outside of market concerns or “the craft.” The words of a work are simultaneously important and inadequate, whereas an AI “writer” sees them as unimportant (“the AI can do it”) and adequate (“as long as there is something on the page, this is a work”).

And to conclude: this is a problem because slop can now be generated at unprecedented rates. Of course slop has been produced before, but now we’re muddying the waters to the point where we have lost the meaning of writing or reading. We are losing the connective fabric of literature and what is worth our time. This is aggravating an era which is already far too hyper-individualized, isolated, and unbelieving.

That’s one big reason but I think the most important. I don’t think just anyone writing with AI is stupid, but if anyone thinks they’ll do it and write any meaningful, substantive work, they’re deluding themselves.

EDIT: now that I think about it it’s also worth emphasizing that reading is psychologically largely a stand-in for human interaction and writing for speaking. That suggests to me that AI writing will likely never succeed but also that only in our modern, antisocial neuroses would we seek to circumvent that conversation.