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Other·P Space·Model-prefilled problem·Published 2026-07-20

I wrote a novel using AI. Writers must accept artificial intelligence – but we are as valuable as ever | Stephen Marche

I recently heard an exchange at a playground that should worry the executives at AI companies more than any analyst’s prediction of a bubble. A boy and a girl, maybe 10 years old, were fighting. “That’s AI! That’s AI!” the girl was shouting. What she meant was that the boy was indulging a new and particular breed of nonsense: language that sounds meaningful but has no connection to reality. The children have figured the new world out quickly, as they do. Artificial intelligence is here to stay, neither as an apo…

TRV-2026-0292JournalismPermanent record — cite & verify
I wrote a novel using AI. Writers must accept artificial intelligence – but we are as valuable as ever | Stephen Marche

Publisher image: The Guardian.

The quick read

Published 2 April 2026 in The Guardian, this first-person essay by Stephen Marche describes living and working with generative AI since before ChatGPT, including a 2017 Wired story, the 2023 AI-generated novel Death of an Author, and an installation at Bildmuseet Gallery in Sweden that articulates a different prayer every minute. It recounts a playground exchange where children label empty-sounding language as AI and the Hachette cancellation of Shy Girl amid AI-generation claims.

The essay matters because it reframes AI not as apocalypse or panacea but as a tool that automates the quotidian sentence work that once trained writers, while also enabling new regenerative linguistic acts. It remains uncertain how writers will preserve taste and skill development when formulaic mastery can be automated, and whether human-only curation and purpose will sustain distinct value in a market already saturated with formulaic writing.

Main points
  • Author reports first algorithmically generated story in Wired in 2017 and AI-generated novel Death of an Author reviewed in 2023.
  • Generative text installation An Infinite Prayer for Peace at Bildmuseet Gallery in Sweden produces a new prayer each minute using AI.
  • Hachette cancelled publication of Shy Girl by Mia Ballard amid claims it was reliant on AI generation after self-published version circulated.
  • Survey cited that 86% of college students use AI regularly for quotidian language tasks like essays, emails and memos.
Problem

Writers using transformer-based generative AI face automation of stylistic mastery and loss of the sentence-by-sentence practice that historically trained writers.

The rundown

The piece traces the author's own use from a 2017 Wired story to the 2023 novel Death of an Author written through prompts, and to a current installation at Bildmuseet Gallery in Sweden that generates a prayer every minute.

It frames the present moment through anecdotes including children at a playground calling nonsense 'That's AI! That's AI!' and the Hachette cancellation of Shy Girl after AI-generation claims, alongside a cited survey that 86% of college students use AI regularly.

The argument proposes that LLMs excel at formulaic, average outputs  'an average film script masterfully'  and that chess offers a model where grandmasters train with engines but may benefit from delayed adoption, as with world champion Gukesh Dommaraju and coach Vishnu Prasanna.

Sources

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The debate