Tariq Mahmood Awan
Artificial intelligence has developed its abilities by drawing on the creative wealth of human history: its literature, poetry, art, research and writing. Yet this process has raised a fundamental ethical question. Is it right to use the writings, ideas and artistic styles of creators to train artificial intelligence without their permission and without due acknowledgement? To draw on human creations and present them as new content, while the rights of the original creator are ignored, may well violate the principles of intellectual property and creative justice.
There is another side to this situation, one that in my view holds extraordinary importance for the future of the writer. In the age of artificial intelligence, the challenge of writing is not merely to produce good prose. It is to present ideas and concepts that are not simply a repetition of digital content that already exists. Alongside command of language, the writer must now focus on intellectual originality, conceptual innovation and the creation of new theoretical perspectives.
I began writing in 2018. After 2022, however, I made a conscious effort to develop new concepts in my work, to look at problems from different angles, and to coin new terms to express them. Terms such as Unitary Bureaucracy and Administrative Federalism in my book The Bureaucratic Coup are examples of this intellectual pursuit. Their importance lies not in being new words, but in the concepts through which I have tried to understand the relationship between the state, the bureaucracy, federalism and governance in a different way.
Artificial intelligence can play an effective role in refining language, organising arguments, assisting research and bringing together different aspects of existing knowledge. But good writing and genuine intellectual innovation are not the same thing. Fluency and elegance of style may make a piece of writing effective, but its originality is determined by whether it adds a new concept, question or intellectual perspective to knowledge.
It is true that artificial intelligence can also create new combinations from existing information. However, the distinctive strength of human creativity lies in its intellectual independence, its experience, its critical insight and its ability to shape new theoretical possibilities. In the future, the writers who matter most may be those who, instead of repeating available knowledge, challenge its basic assumptions and raise questions that have never before been discussed in that way.
My books on governance, The Bureaucratic Coup, Fixing the Executive, Fixing the Legislature, Fixing the Judiciary and others, represent this effort. My aim in them is not merely to explain Pakistan’s existing state and administrative structure, but to examine its basic assumptions critically and to offer an alternative intellectual narrative. This narrative seeks to understand Pakistan not as a bureaucratic state, but as a constitutional, representative, democratic and federal republic. Throughout this work, wherever new and indigenous approaches to concepts are discussed, I have also tried to bring innovation to vocabulary, terminology and the construction of phrases.
In my view, to present a real alternative to any system, it is necessary to move beyond its existing terminology and assumptions. When a writer builds a new conceptual language and a different theoretical framework, he does not merely criticise the existing system. He also makes clear the possibilities of an alternative. This is the creative work whose value cannot be measured by fluency of language or abundance of information alone. Yet the fundamental purpose of my effort is not the arrangement of words or the uniqueness of ideas. It is to design a system of governance in the public interest, one from which both the state and society can benefit.
As artificial intelligence spreads, producing ordinary and repetitive content will become ever easier. As a result, genuine intellectual originality, deep research and distinctive theoretical construction may become even more valuable. The real challenge for the writer, therefore, is not to write more words than the machine, but to produce knowledge that broadens human understanding and helps move beyond existing intellectual limits.
A fundamental ethical responsibility comes with this as well. The individual rights of creators cannot be ignored by declaring human creations a collective intellectual heritage. Respect for intellectual property, proper permission, transparency and the protection of creators’ rights must become core principles in the development of artificial intelligence.
In the age of artificial intelligence, the future of human creativity lies not merely in writing better, but in producing new thought. Words, styles and existing theories can be copied. But true intellectual innovation is that which offers a new way of understanding the world, a different way of seeing problems, and new possibilities for the future. This is the real challenge of the creative writer, and this is also his greatest significance.
In the end, the contest between artificial intelligence and fundamental human creative intelligence will be a fascinating one.
Tariq Mahmood Awan
The best-selling books of Republic Policy Think Tank, including the landmark book The Bureaucratic Coup, are available at Vanguard Books, Liberty Books, Readings, Kitab Sarai, Sang-e-Meel, Saeed Book Bank Islamabad, National Book Foundation, and others across Pakistan. Contact for home delivery: 0300 9552542.
