Orwell, Miller, and ChatGPT

There must be something more to the reach, scope, sweeping influence, and veracity of books than Faulkner’s dictum that best fiction is always truer than best journalism.

As a testimony to the power of the written word, rousing and galvanizing people afar, and conjuring up forces that presage coming convulsions, there is still no alternative to an impassioned tract, revelatory treatise, fervid novella, or an intricate plot.

George Orwell's brilliant review of Henry Miller's scandalous 'Tropic of Cancer' is titled 'Inside the Whale' – an allusion to the Biblical imagery of Jonah being swallowed by a big fish.

In the 1930s, when the western world was roiled by political agitations, threat of tyranny, loss of freedoms, looming war, upheavals, and crisis of power and legitimacy, Miller wrote about ragtag artists, lumpens, failed poets, dissolute rakes, addicts, hedonists, social outliers and other expatriate wannabes living in Paris.

He chose to be an immediate observer of his surroundings, instead of throwing himself into the larger world, which he was aware, but couldn’t change – and lacked the drive to do so.

Orwell, on the contrary, was a highly engaged, active, willfully vigilant political writer, who said his work that lacked any implicit political motivation was dull, insipid, and contained purple passages.

The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is in itself a political opinion.

Miller was inside the whale – a transparent one though, as he was not blissfully unaware, but had what Orwell termed 'the resigned acceptance' redolent of Walt Whitman.

While Orwell wanted to joust and push the whale, to wrestle with it.

These two approaches distinguish most honest writers, separating them from the swelling crowd of mimics, drum-beaters, doctrinal opportunists, and other ventriloquists.

Taking this imagery, what can be said of ChatGPT and our collective AI predicament?

It is neither inside the whale nor outside, but a regurgitator of zeitgeist homilies, banalities, platitudes, in thrall to the constantly updated anonymous algorithm.

This is the glaring blindspot of generative AI or similar software contraptions. They are inert, passive, amoral, unengaging, untethered, lack the human will, anxiety, passion, or command.

Good to grasp raw facts, strict no-go for analysis, rigor, depth, and refinement.

All writers either aspire to be read by posterity, or snub it like Hemingway – 'what is posterity’?

Sheer egotism and bid for permanence is a powerfully underrated motive, as mentioned by Orwell in 'Why I Write’.

Books that outlast centuries, and still read with a sense of freshness, vigor, timeless relevance, are rare. But rarer still are those that spearhead seismic socio-political changes.

And through them, the writers move a step further than being ‘unacknowledged legislators’.

Some of the famous ones include:

Sportsman's Sketches by Ivan Turgenev: A candid and moving portrayal of the wretched and tortured lives of the rural serfs, it is said to be an inspiration behind abolition of serfdom in Russia.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Elizabeth Beecher Stowe: When the title of the book becomes a derisive phrase, it speaks volumes about its influence across ages. This book served as a moral inspiration to abolitionist movement in the USA, culminating in the end of slavery.

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair: The shock and public outrage upon its release in 1906, led to protests for food safety and laws against contamination, resulting in stringent safety regulations and the creation of FDA.

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson: This is said to be the seminal text of modern day environmentalism, catalyzing the foundation of EPA and the first Earth Day in 1970.

Which of these feats can the ChatGPT and its future iterations rival?

None, in my reckoning. Unless we patiently await Monkey on a Typewriter Epiphany.

Nothing significant or great can come out of ChatGPT other than as a college assignment aid, research guide for rookies, or a modern hack & huckster supplement cum manual akin to Roget’s Thesaurus in 1970s.