A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. — Thomas Mann
Ever since watching the “White Christmas” episode of Black Mirror (Season 2, Episode 4), I have consistently thought about the prospect of having a digital version of myself that could be used to do my busy work, such as answering unimportant e-mails and other clerical work that does not require much thinking but takes up a lot of time—time that could be spent on truly rewarding work that requires creativity. The key here, however, is that it would have to be, like in that episode, a digital version of myself who does things exactly like me, not a random chatbot doing the tasks, and certainly not outsourcing my serious work to artificial intelligence. However, outsourcing intellectual work to artificial intelligence sounds appealing to some people, and it is unsurprising that artificial intelligence chatbots are exploding in popularity, the most famous at the present being ChatGPT.