Award-winning author Ted Chiang to Columbia students: “Write your own fiction”

Science fiction author Ted Chiang visited Columbia this past spring to discuss AI and its relationship with art. Invited by the Asian American Initiative, he delivered a fascinating talk in conversation with English and Comparative Literature Professor, Denise Cruz.

Chiang opened his talk with a reference to his essay “Why A.I. Isn’t Going to Make Art” in The New Yorker (August 2024) and expanded on how art is defined by time and intentionality. Art should take time, Chiang stressed, because artists make decisions as they create, and those decisions make their work interesting and intentional. AI does not make decisions or have this type of discernment; it simply produces large outputs from small inputs. 

When AI is used to make art, Chiang said, all intentionality is lost and the process becomes automatic. Art should take time, he added, because artists make decisions as they create, and the decisions are what make the work interesting. AI does not make decisions or have this type of discernment; it simply produces large outputs from small inputs. He implored the audience to imagine an art museum filled with AI art created “[at] the touch of a button” in rapid succession over and over. How could someone connect emotionally with a piece if another were to replace it immediately?

He then touched on the shifting definition of plagiarism with the advent of AI. AI has blurred the lines “between people who run marathons and those who always say [they] want to run a marathon.” In conversation with Professor Cruz, Chiang later emphasized that the AI he imagined in his earlier science fiction writing is very different from the AI we see today. The AI we face is far more commercialized, intrinsically tied with capitalism and promoting ad-revenue generating content; he called this a “corporate form of AI.”

Professor Cruz asked about the role his Asian American identity played on his work as a writer, to which Chiang responded that he never considered his work in science fiction as that of an “Asian American writer,” and rather saw himself as “a writer of science fiction” but was pleasantly surprised to hear from other Asian American authors that he in fact did inspired others to pursue writing in this genre.

He concluded the talk with one single sentiment: “write your own fiction; do not use AI.” Chiang believes human made art will remain valuable, and that we must have hope that the capitalistic nature of our society will change.

See photos from the event below.