{"id":245783,"date":"2026-05-14T08:45:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T12:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/14\/is-ai-really-writing-from-a-priestess-to-philosophers-ancient-authors-would-have-said-no\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T08:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T12:50:08","slug":"is-ai-really-writing-from-a-priestess-to-philosophers-ancient-authors-would-have-said-no","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/14\/is-ai-really-writing-from-a-priestess-to-philosophers-ancient-authors-would-have-said-no\/","title":{"rendered":"Is AI really \u2018writing\u2019? From a priestess to philosophers, ancient authors would have said \u2018no\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is AI really \u2018writing\u2019? From a priestess to philosophers, ancient authors would have said \u2018no\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/theconversation.com\/is-ai-really-writing-from-a-priestess-to-philosophers-ancient-authors-would-have-said-no-280133<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-05-14 08:45:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: theconversation.com<\/a><\/p>\n

I teach writing and rhetoric, but my college students and I often overlook a surprisingly complicated question: What is writing?<\/p>\n

And can artificial intelligence really do it?<\/p>\n

Many people think of \u201cwriting\u201d as putting words on a page. However, even from very early on, writers have seen their craft as something more. From Enheduanna, the first named author on record, to Plato and Aristotle, writing has been portrayed and defined in ways that suggest AI may not be \u201cwriting\u201d at all.<\/p>\n

If not, what should we call AI text? ChatGPT and I have an idea.<\/p>\n

Praising and pleading<\/h2>\n

Enheduanna, who lived around 2,300 B.C.E., was a powerful princess, priestess and poet of the Akkadian Empire, in what is now Iraq. She has been celebrated as the earliest known writer, though the authorship of her poems and hymns is debated.<\/p>\n

One of her poems, \u201cThe Exaltation of Inanna,\u201d reveals a sense of what writing is and does \u2013 portraying it as a living medium that expresses experience and shapes the future.<\/p>\n

First, the poem praises the ancient Mesopotamian goddess Inanna, who was associated with fertility and war, among other powers. \u201cMy Lady, you are the guardian \/ Of all greatness,\u201d Enheduanna says, in a translation by Jane Hirschfield.<\/p>\n

A tablet in the Penn Museum in Philadelphia inscribed with a copy of Enheduanna\u2019s \u2018Exaltation of Inanna.\u2019<\/span>
\n Masha Stoyanova\/Flickr via Wikimedia Commons<\/span><\/p>\n

That praise may be strategic. It is followed by Enheduanna\u2019s plea to overthrow Lugal-Ane, a rebel king who she describes exiling her and taking her post at the temple of Ur. \u201cNow I have been cast out \/ To the place of lepers,\u201d she writes, describing her suffering. \u201cDay comes, \/ And the brightness \/ Is hidden around me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grieving, Enheduanna writes a new destiny. In a translation by Sophus Helle, the priestess envisions Inanna coming to her aid and \u201ctear[ing] off this fate, Lugale-Ane.\u201d…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is AI really \u2018writing\u2019? From a priestess to philosophers, ancient authors would have said \u2018no\u2019…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":245784,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/735173\/original\/file-20260511-57-dv0n91.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&rect=0%2C692%2C2737%2C1368&q=45&auto=format&w=1356&h=668&fit=crop","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-245783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245783"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245783"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245783\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":245785,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245783\/revisions\/245785"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}