Writing is a profound activity if you reflect on it for long enough. Most of your website’s visitors are likely reading this on a screen, but these words, capturing their attention for a brief moment, started out as ink in my pen. So many of history’s most consequential characters had at one point found themselves at an impasse, carrying the weight of the world in their next decision, and changed their mind after being captivated by a piece of paper. On this paper, the illiterate man would only see a random assortment of lines, loops, and dots that are largely meaningless; its value is derived from the reader in proportion to their reading ability: should a man be learned enough to wield the true power of the pen, and the well-read be in the right place at the right time, historians might attribute the rise and fall of civilizations to someone moving the fingers on their dominant hand ever so slightly.

I gave up the hope that my words could enact such a change long ago. They say that the most important day in a man’s life is the one where he discovers why he was born. I envy those who know; all I know is that this is not my calling. Writing is too hard for me. Every time I try to get my thoughts on paper with the goal of making my mark on history, I get stuck: what often begins as a period of introspection, sitting in my library in absolute silence, crafting a universe in my mind before singling out a distinct image whose lucidity could transport anyone into a new world, evoking an array of ideas and feelings that ignite one’s wildest dreams, ends with my head in my hands, as still as a Rodin sculpture, staring at a blank page knowing that words will only blur my vision. After accepting my weak grasp on language and finally deciding that I need to simply go ahead and say something, my vivid mental experience can’t be adequately expressed before first writing drafts, discarding them, writing more drafts, filing those away before encountering them months later, rereading them before noticing that eight pages of rambling could be condensed into one sentence, incorporating that sentence into a new draft, and repeating that process for every sentence in my finished product; and even then, it’s all garbage. I’ll never live up to the storytellers, whose belief in and command over the power of words lets them treat the pen like a paintbrush that brings their pages to life: only Victor Hugo can make me weep for a convicted felon who was a master of the criminal underworld, challenging my prior notion that the law determines what is morally right; only Ayn Rand can move me to tears in admiration of a business tycoon who intends to engage in excessive price gouging, through a tale about how the morally right are those who act solely out of self-interest. Maybe I’m just sensitive and cry a lot; but each of these thinkers artfully assembled enough letters in a certain order to make a lasting impression on me—each in a way no one else can.

It should be no surprise, then, that while this essay will shortly enter the void of old, miscellaneous texts and be forgotten, the genius of people like Hugo and Rand will remain relevant for many years to come, occupying the minds of thoughtful men for generations. They unleashed their creativity to portray their beliefs and views of the world through a mastery of language that sharpens the minds of skilled readers thanks to a unique style that pushed the boundaries of what we thought writing could do. Not me. For efficiency, I normally take a vague concept I don’t entirely understand and use a math equation, whose variables are unknown to me, to choose the most logical next word, over and over again, to explain my loosely-defined idea. I then review this string of words to determine if it accurately described the original product of my mind. If it did, then Hugo and Rand can keep their place in history, because I am artificially intelligent.