Discourse and Writing/Rédactologie  Volume 34, 2024  http://journals.sfu.ca/dwr     43   Book Review  Baron, N. S. (2023). Who Wrote This? How AI and the Lure of Efficiency Threaten Human Writing. Stanford University Press. Tenen, D. Y. (2024). Literary Theory for Robots. How AI Learned to Write. Norton Shorts. Reviewed by Boba Samuels University of Toronto  Two new books present perspectives on the impact of generative Artificial Intelligence (genAI) on  writing  and  attempt  to  put  the  stunning  developments  since  the  public  release  of  ChatGPT  in  November 2022 into a clearer focus. One is highly recommended, while the other is disappointing. I  am one of the masses who enjoys reading Steven Pinker, Jared Diamond, and Yuval Noah Harari, so I  expected to find Naomi S. Baron  s Who Wrote This? a similarly engaging sweep about AI  s impact on  writing. The ominous sounding subtitle (How AI and the Lure of Efficiency Threaten Human Writing),  however, should have alerted me to be wary. On the other hand, Dennis Yi Tenen  s Literary Theory  for Robots seemed to hold out little hope for me since I am neither an expert in English literature nor  a robot afficionado.  Its subtitle (How AI Learned to Write), however, appealed to me as a writing  teacher and thankfully avoided references to potential dystopias. Baron  s book presents a confusing  hopscotch across time and topic, drawing in more trivia than seems possible, all told in a voice that  is annoyingly over-friendly and chatty, like having a garrulous aunt explain genAI to you. In contrast,  Tenen  s approachable, professorial tone actually feels friendly and respectful both of the topic and  reader. At about half the length of Who Wrote This?, his book is also a concise and insightful read.  Who Wrote This? claims its focus is on the place where human writers and genAI meet, and   the  contrast  between  human  authorship  and  today  s  AI  alternatives  represents  an  historic  human  moment      that  the  book    takes  on    (Prologue,    A  Tale  of  Two  Authors  ).  This  means  posing  the  questions:   What writing tasks should we share with AI? Which might we cede? How do we draw the   Discourse and Writing/Rédactologie  Volume 34, 2024  http://journals.sfu.ca/dwr     44   line?   (Prologue,   Is Writing Uniquely Human?   As if sensing this frame is limited, Baron expands to  ponder  a  host  of  related  issues:  whether  machines  can  take  over  human  tasks,  whether  AI  might  develop into artificial general intelligence (AGI) and ultimately gain control over humans, whether  decision making should be vested predominantly in humans or AI, and well, a list of issues including   environmental concerns, bias, privacy, etc. In short, there is no clear focus for taking on this moment.   To be sure, the issues touched on by Baron merit discussion and have proven challenging. The  problem is that no insights are provided that might help us determine how we might address these  issues  and  divvy  up  writing  between  AI  and  ourselves.  Readers  are  presented  with  a  dichotomy:  either  AI  s  abilities  will  captivate  us  and  decrease  our  human  writing  skills  and  voice,  or  AI  will  enhance our writing and lead to machine-human collaboration. Thus, we are told we each need to  decide for ourselves what we will cede or keep. Really? That is our response to this historic moment?  We are each on our own?   The book is organized into four parts and an awkwardly named glossary. The various chapters  present, in multiple sections, subsections, numbered items, and bullet points, a plethora of historical  facts  and  anecdotes,  questionably  related  digressions  (if  you  think  Jim  Henson  and  the  Muppets  couldn  t be integrated, you are mistaken), snippets and summaries of research done by Baron and  others, and outtakes from the author  s experiences with ChatGPT. Some of these descriptions are, to  be sure, interesting and relevant, introducing points that have the potential to generate insights. For  instance, in Chapter 12, Baron summarizes a number of studies about handwriting, discussing the  notion of embodiment and what that might mean in the context of increasing use of computers (i.e.,  keyboarding) rather than handwriting. She presents some clear evidence of handwriting  s benefits,  followed by a long explication of her own research on students   perspectives about writing by hand  or on a keyboard. But rather than digging deeper into the idea of writing and voice being integrally  related to physicality, and what this physical embodiment might suggest about disembodied LLMs,  she concludes with vague points about humans wanting to maintain control of writing, valuing voice,  and yet believing that AI improves their writing. These   themes   are followed by three   takeaways  ,  followed by two recommendations. Then we move on to a point about the impact of AI on writing  jobs.  The juxtaposition of hyper-organized points with content that jumps abruptly between ideas leads  to confusion rather than a sense of impressive breadth. At the sentence level, invocations to wait until  the next chapter to see X, or remember that Y was mentioned back in a previous section, or we  ll see  Z again, feel less like helpful guidance and more like a lack of organization and annoying intrusions.   Discourse and Writing/Rédactologie  Volume 34, 2024  http://journals.sfu.ca/dwr     45   What is helpful, however, especially for those new to genAI, is a final section devoted to identifying  and  briefly  defining  key  terms  and  acronyms  used  in  AI  and  in  the  book.  But  in  keeping  with  the  idiosyncratic  organization  seen  throughout,  this  section  is  titled    Main  Characters    with  subtitles  invoking   Alphabet Soup   and   Bite-sized definitions   . Careful editing might have addressed such  mixed metaphors and confusions, but given the speed with which AI innovations are being released,  perhaps the goal was simply speedy publication.  If what you want is a grab bag of fun facts, cursory descriptions of current AI developments (as of  2023), some research findings, and general explications of pedagogical concerns, all in the service of  supporting the argument that human thinking benefits from human writing, then you will find it here.  But then, that  s what you might have expected from the subtitle, right?  In  contrast,  Literary  Theory  for  Robots  presents  readers  with  a  challenge:  to  see  the    ordinary  magic of literary computers   (Chapter 1). It does this by nudging us to think of computers as alien life  forms  that  we  can  understand  only  by  also  thinking    in  alien  ways    (Chapter  1).  Which  means,  according to Tenen, that we think in terms of cognitive evolution (i.e., How is thinking evolving with  AI? rather than the simplistic Is AI smarter than humans?). He argues that humans have been thinking  and  writing    with  and  through  machines    (Chapter  1)  for  centuries  and  provides  compelling  examples for how our thinking is bound up with tools and with others.   The book is organized into eight chapters, with the last providing a series of   nine important ideas  that will totally change your life in addition to explaining why AI will neither destroy humanity nor  solve all its problems   (Chapter 8). I appreciated the levity. His view that humans have long used a  variety of   machines   to learn and think and write is supported by historical anecdotes and detailed  explanations (such as his description and diagram of zairajahs    medieval Arabic divination circles     as an early text producing system [Chapter 2,   Table  ]). His focus is unapologetically historical and  literary. Chapter 7 takes a dive into mathematics, probability, and poetry. It can be hard to follow,  even when he includes short exercises we can follow that illustrate his points. But persevering leads  to a series of conclusions that invite deeper thinking in response to the current fixation with speed  related to all things AI.    Tenen leads readers away from doomsday scenarios towards a view of AI as trailing a long history  that shows   thinking and writing happen through time, in dialogue with a crowd   so we can see AI as    just another way to give that collaborative a voice. It does not, as we will see, amount to one thing  but many   (Chapter 1). This isn  t to suggest Tenen sees the AI-inflected future as entirely rosy:   We  should  be  preparing  for  a  future  of    writers    and    coders    incapable  of  authoring  a  single  line   Discourse and Writing/Rédactologie  Volume 34, 2024  http://journals.sfu.ca/dwr     46   unassisted    (Chapter  8,    Technology  Encodes  Politics  ).  He  has  shown,  however,  that  it  may  have  been delusional for us to ever have claimed our thinking and writing were unassisted.