Writing is Like Making Love
July 10, 2026
Jonny Thomson, a young man who used to teach at St. Edward’s School, Oxford, is now a columnist at Big Think, the author of three books, and the host of Mini Philosophy, a video series of shorts explaining philosophical, psychological, and theological concepts in engaging and accessible ways.
In a recent video, he explains that “25% of men using dating apps are using AI to talk for them.” The AI tells them “how to be flirty, how to be charming, how to be funny, or whatever.” AI is used in relationships too, telling people how to deal with others’ emotions, for example. Thomson explains how philosopher Davide Battisti believes this is a serious error. If romantic relationships depend on trust and intimacy, outsourcing authenticity is akin to moral injury. Battisti calls this “second person authenticity.”
Thomson says, “Every time you get an LLM to write you a birthday card…you undermine your authenticity. You present a fake version of you, and it’s hard to trust a fake. […] So we should beware using AI to write our messages for us, or to tell us how to behave. Because sometimes the where, the when, or the what doesn’t matter. All that matters is that the right person is doing it or saying it.”
Elsewhere Thomson says that philosophy’s etymological definition, “love of wisdom,” may be off the mark and that “‘curiosity’ is a much better modern term”—curiosity being another trait that AI can only mimic on behalf of the lazily incurious, though it may be one of life’s most important values.
It struck me recently how much these prescriptions fit the act of personal writing. As a book editor I have begun to see freelance platforms asking would-be clients to toggle whether they have used AI in creating their manuscripts. Some clients say things like, “I used Claude only for structural help in my work.”
Of course the best thing about writing for oneself is that you always own your own work and can do exactly as you like with it. But as someone who has only been able to write because I learned to use process to create structure, form, and therefore meaning, I think those amateur writers have cut themselves off from the most foundational level of discovery that makes their manuscripts representative of their minds.
Recently, I received a request for a bid for developmental and copyediting for a memoir manuscript. The would-be client is an alcoholic, a heroin addict, and a sexual abuse survivor. He was open in his message that he had used AI, “though directed by me as to outcome.” The sample he provided was inhuman in tone and soullessly drove to provide all the facts.
I had to reply, “Thanks for giving me a chance to bid on your project. It is an important topic, and I wish you well. I don’t work with AI-generated texts, however, because their texture is not personal; they do not carry the markers of the developing understanding of an individual working forward through drafts toward meaning. Therefore, it’s like shiny plastic that can’t be worked on just a little without cracking to pieces. All the best.”
Creating meaning, like making love, must be engaged with every step of the way or else the right person is not doing it.
