Prohibit to write like the AI

A new servitude has arrived in our lives and it is having to differentiate ourselves from artificial intelligence. Professionals who use writing for our work, consultants, columnists, students and teachers who need it as a means of expression now have a new limit that makes the difficult art of writing even more difficult: we cannot resemble texts produced by AI. We can be accused of plagiarism, of impersonation, of not using our creativity... Figures like the didactic antithesis, so used by great orators, such as Kennedy's Veni, vidi, vici" (I came, I saw, I conquered) is a structure very characteristic of AI. The chiasmus or mirror structure "Do not ask for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee" by the poet John Donne used by Hemingway would become suspect of being copied from AI. And contrasts are eliminated for being the most frequent "tic" of AI: "No need to work more, need to work better". Imagine now, stripped of linguistic figures, without being able to use long dashes either as punctuation marks because they are what the AI uses, the time and effort we need dedicated to finding artifacts to replace these classic formulas of expression that everyone has used at some point in their lives.The doctor in communication from Pompeu Fabra University, Frederic Guerrero-Solé, wrote on LinkedIn a few days ago that he found it inadmissible that writing well could become a disadvantage in the academic field due to the suspicions raised by the perfection of texts produced by AI. Because the problem is that good students, those who write complex texts, rich in vocabulary and syntactically perfect, are forced to intentionally incorporate errors or lower the level of their writing if they want to avoid suspicion or be directly accused of plagiarism and impersonation.Guerrero-Solé's thinking delved even deeper, questioning which society discredits those who wish to be intellectually formed, a concept already absent in the university. He denounced that this stance is, in reality, an anti-intellectualism that fosters populism by emptying society of complex thought.I believe we have long been settled in what we could call the “society of simplicity”. For years, brilliant students have not been able to stand out in their schools, institutes, or university classrooms and have preferred discretion or even to lower their grades so as not to be subjected to mockery and scorn by a social majority that does not value effort or excellence (unfortunately, sometimes including professors). This hegemony of mediocrity impacts all areas, not just the academic one, and indeed, I agree with the UPF professor who fosters populism by discrediting students who write well and preventing the possibility of intellectual development and free thought. We are mistaken when we think that AI is inhuman: on the contrary, it is the result of thousands of excellent literary texts, also thousands of mediocre ones, many of them vulgar. It includes everything! Many of the features attributed today to AI-generated writings are not actually its inventions, but classic rhetorical devices – developed by people – that have been used for centuries in literature, politics, advertising, and oratory. Language models tend to use them very frequently because they produce fluid, balanced texts and show complex thoughts in an understandable and enjoyable way. We find ourselves, consequently, facing a paradox: what we need to produce interesting and complex texts cannot be used for fear of being accused of AI plagiarism. And this lowers the general linguistic level, as well as inhibiting the intellectual development of those who will be our future researchers, artists, entrepreneurs, and leaders. If, on top of that, it contributes to promoting populism, a new model must be found where using AI is not an impediment to expressing thoughts with quality and stimulating our students towards excellence. It is not a renunciation — it is a necessity.