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The Pen is Mightier than the AI: Creative Writing and the Human Touch.

10 May, 2025

THE HANOI TIMES — In the aftermath of Typhoon Yagi, a journalist ventured into a devastated village in northern Vietnam, where he encountered a man perched atop a cracked concrete pillar, the sole remnant of his home. The man had lost his wife and children the previous night, and he sat there, numb with grief, staring at the barren land that was once his home.

The journalist introduced himself, and they conversed. The journalist listened intently, bearing witness to the man’s pain. He tried to ask questions, but the weight of the man’s loss rendered them futile. Carrying a notebook filled with words and a mind clouded with doubt, the journalist departed.

Back at his desk, the journalist struggled to write the story. He erased draft after draft, leaving the page blank for weeks. It was only months later, during a talk show about disaster reporting, that he shared his experience. “I couldn’t bring myself to write the story,” he confessed, “not because I didn’t want to, but because the pain of doing it justice was too much to bear.”

While artificial intelligence (AI) can generate countless news stories with a single click, it lacks the capacity to empathize with those who have lost everything. It cannot sit beside someone in their grief, contemplating which aspects of their pain are appropriate for public consumption. AI will never grapple with the guilt of not knowing the right words to say.

This is not merely a technical debate; it strikes at the very heart of journalism’s identity and the values it upholds, especially as technology surpasses human capabilities.

Consider the Panama Papers, one of the most significant leaks in history, exposed not by a machine but by a network of investigative journalists. Their intuition, tenacity, and sense of public duty drove them to follow leads, cross-reference records, and make nuanced judgments that no algorithm could hope to emulate.

The future of journalism hinges not on a battle between humans and machines but on humans’ ability to lead machines rather than be led by them.

AI has already made significant inroads into newsrooms, as evident at the Associated Press, where the implementation of AI systems led to a surge in automated sports story publications from 300 to over 4,000 per quarter. While these tools reduce costs and increase speed, they do not enhance efficiency. Journalism devoid of human connection becomes empty, for volume does not equate to meaning.

AI has never stood amid the ruins of a collapsed house, heard the quiver in a survivor’s voice, or experienced the haunting silence of a village post-storm. While it can generate coherent text, it falls short in conveying grief, accepting responsibility, or exercising restraint. AI cannot bear the weight of someone’s story and make the ethical decision between what should be shared and what should remain confidential.

This is not an issue of computational power. The Moravec Paradox highlights that while machines excel at logic and data processing, they falter when it comes to empathy, perception, and moral judgment—the very essence of human strength. AI can identify patterns in words but fails to comprehend why a father would risk his life for one last search in floodwaters. It cannot discern between tragedy and spectacle; only a journalist possesses that discernment.

As Professor Nguyen Duc An asserted at a recent forum on journalism and AI, “Artificial intelligence can process language, but it cannot comprehend context, ethics, or human pain.” It may mimic tone, but it does not understand intent. It can generate a voice but lacks presence and bears no responsibility for its publications.

While AI can swiftly summarize damage reports and scan satellite images, it does not pause to consider the potential retraumatization of a grieving family when publishing a photo or transcribing a mother’s account of losing her child. It does not question whether certain parts should be omitted.

Following Typhoon Yagi, AI could have produced articles laden with statistics and maps, but it could not have stood amidst the ruins, listened to the silence of a grieving man, and interpreted the depth of his loss. The decision to tell or withhold a story is an ethical choice, and ethics cannot be programmed.

As AI advances, the necessity for human oversight intensifies. When Microsoft’s MSN published an article on racism with an incorrect photo of a Black artist, the fallout was immediate, and the newsroom, not the algorithm, bore the blame.

The proliferation of synthetic content, including deepfakes, cloned voices, and AI-generated articles, further underscores the importance of human journalists. Fabricating information is becoming easier than verifying it, and without journalists to challenge, contextualize, and counter misinformation, it will proliferate unchecked.

Human journalists excel not by competing with machines in speed but by accomplishing what machines cannot. They ask probing questions, recognize subtleties, take responsibility for their narratives, interpret events, and determine how truth should be conveyed with lucidity and compassion.

While some may argue that AI will eventually supplant journalists, it is essential to recognize that AI does not traverse disaster zones or wrestle with ethical conundrums. It does not confront threats for speaking truth to power or stand before a grieving father, grappling with how to craft a story that balances honesty and kindness.

Journalism entails more than mere reporting; it is about bearing witness. A journalist is not merely a content producer but a guardian of truth, memory, and human dignity. In an era of information overload and scarce meaning, this role is more crucial than ever.

The challenge before journalism is not about surviving AI but about preserving its essence. As machines become more adept at writing, journalists must deepen their capacity for empathy, for no algorithm can replicate the defining attributes of journalism: the capacity to care and the bravery to choose.