Humans have long prided themselves on being the only beings capable of creativity, as they are the architects of civilization, the innovators of the arts, and the developers of culture, possessing a unique ability to express and articulate ideas. However, this quintessential trait that distinguished humans is no longer solely theirs. The world woke up about two years ago, specifically at the beginning of 2023, to a new revolution in artificial intelligence, with an innovative application capable of generating infinite textual content that rivals human proficiency; in fact, it surpasses humans in some aspects. This application, “ChatGPT” from OpenAI, became the talk of everyone. Its capabilities didn’t stop at text generation; just a few weeks after its launch, Google entered the competition with its model “Gemini,” followed by Microsoft’s launch of “Copilot.” Nevertheless, ChatGPT maintained its superiority over all these models, leading generative AI into creative fields such as music composition, painting, singing, and writing literary works.
The world had barely digested what ChatGPT produced when it was surprised again by a new Chinese application that, at least cost-wise, could outperform ChatGPT—namely, the “DeepSeek” model. Shortly after its launch, Chinese company Alibaba announced its own model, “Qin,” claiming it surpassed DeepSeek. It is inevitable that other companies such as Huawei and Amazon will soon join this frenzied race, as if we are witnessing an open war in the realm of generative AI. This war is not merely against artificial intelligence itself but rather competes to gradually push humans out of creative domains, including culture and the arts.
This raises important questions: Does the world really need all these applications focused primarily on producing written content? Are we on the verge of creating a colossal machine that continuously generates articles, stories, and texts without end? If this is the case, who will read all that content? A new massive machine might be needed to read what the first machine has written, making it seem as though artificial intelligence is communicating among itself while deliberately neglecting the role of humans.
In reality, what matters is not who reads it—whether machine or human—but rather that a fundamental evolution has indeed occurred in the nature of writing and language itself. Throughout history, writing has passed through numerous stages, beginning with primitive symbols that emerged around fifty thousand years ago, which were inscribed on clay tablets to record possessions or commercial transactions. It then evolved over five thousand years ago into pictorial scripts, such as cuneiform writing in Mesopotamia, hieroglyphs in ancient Egypt, and Chinese writing, all of which are systems based on symbols and images inspired by reality. Over time, basic traditional alphabets such as Phoenician, Greek, Latin, and Arabic emerged, forming the foundation for modern writing systems.
As for languages, generative artificial intelligence could create a new language shared by all humans without the need to learn each other’s languages. You can communicate with ChatGPT in your native language and local dialect, and so can everyone else, and it comprehends and responds to them all. The developments occurring in writing and language due to generative AI entail radical transformations that could profoundly impact human communication and cultural exchange among peoples through AI systems capable of real-time translation and language analysis without the need to learn them. Thus, the world may be heading toward a new model of communication where learning foreign languages is no longer a necessity but merely an available option when needed.
Future Risks
This evolution in writing and language, despite its positives, carries elements of risk. Language is not just a tool for communication; it embodies a cultural vision and a mode of thinking that reflects a nation’s history and identity. However, generative AI’s ability to provide real-time translation and seamless communication among people of different languages may render the learning of foreign languages unnecessary, limiting direct interaction with other cultures and weakening opportunities to immerse in their intricacies.
If AI technologies continue to advance to a point where a unified language can be created for all humans to use without the need to learn multiple languages, this could lead to a reduction in linguistic diversity worldwide, consequently obscuring national identities, heritage, and human history.
Humans, who have stood as the sole beings capable of writing for thousands of years, now face a new reality. Is what these models produce real art and creativity, or is it merely a reproduction of what humans have written? Can we equate the narrative crafted by a novelist, who has gone through personal experiences and diverse cultures and expressed it through their emotions and personal impressions, with that written by a system devoid of any feelings or experiences? Should we pay more attention to authenticity and creativity, or are we in need of precision and efficiency regardless of the source?
This debate will not be confined solely to the production of texts and images; generative AI will undoubtedly continue to evolve, encompassing applications that may surpass what we know today, opening the door to a future whose features remain unclear. However, it will undoubtedly reshape our relationship with creativity and knowledge.
