Automated Authorial Voice

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New autocorrect software is beginning to suggest sophisticated word alternatives that go beyond simply correcting typos, reports The New York Times. With such complicated options, the software is beginning to influence authorial voice. This automation also poses a threat to saying anything meaningful at all:

“The more we don’t autonomously struggle with language, grapple to find the right word, muscle through to bend language poetically, the less we’re able to really treat conversation as an intentional act. As something that really expresses what we’re trying to say.”


Ian MacAllen is the author of Red Sauce: How Italian Food Became American (Rowman & Littlefield, April 2022). His writing has appeared in Chicago Review of Books, Southern Review of Books, The Offing, 45th Parallel Magazine, Little Fiction, Vol 1. Brooklyn, and elsewhere. He tweets @IanMacAllen and is online at IanMacAllen.com. More from this author →