Writers on why books still matter in the age of AI

[Sarah87]

Channel 4 News went to Edinburgh to talk to writers about whether we're heading into what some are calling a post-literate age. The backdrop is a mix of smartphones eating people's attention, declining reading rates, and AI generated text spreading everywhere online. The obvious worry raised is whether the printed word can still do the jobs it's always done, like defending facts, building empathy, and holding power to account. It's a genuinely old anxiety wearing a new AI shaped coat

What struck me reading about this is how often people frame AI hallucinations and social media misinformation as the same kind of threat to truth. They're related but not identical problems, since one is about fabricated confidence and the other is about deliberate spin and speed. Books being slow and deliberate is apparently part of their supposed defense against both

Edinburgh makes sense as the backdrop given how deep its literary identity runs, being a UNESCO City of Literature and home to writers whose work has been read by hundreds of millions of people worldwide. That kind of cultural weight gives the conversation some real stakes beyond just nostalgia for paper. Whether that history actually changes reading habits going forward is a separate question though

I'm sympathetic to the argument but skeptical that handwringing about post-literacy changes anyone's actual habits. Feels like every generation gets its own version of this same worry dressed up in whatever new technology is around at the time

Writers on importance of books in the age of smartphones and AIwww.channel4.com