Is AI really “writing”? From a priestess to a philosopher, ancient authors would have said “no.”

I teach writing and rhetoric, but my students and I often overlook a surprisingly complicated question: What is writing?

And can artificial intelligence really do that?

Many people think of “writing” as adding words to a page. But from very early on, writers saw their craft as something more. From Enheduanna, the first named author, to Plato and Aristotle, writing has been presented and defined in ways that suggest that AI may not “write” at all.

If not, what should we call AI text? ChatGPT and I have an idea.

Praise and plead

Enheduanna, who lived around 2,300 B.C. She was a powerful princess, priestess and poet of the Akkadian Empire in what is now Iraq. She is considered the earliest known female writer, although the authorship of her poems and hymns is disputed.

One of her poems, “The Exaltation of Inanna,” reveals a sense of what writing is and does—presenting it as a living medium that expresses experience and…