Dave Eggers: 'Once you have a machine think and write for you, you’re cooked as a species'

Interview with Dave Eggers: Art, Books, and the Fight Against AI

At the start of the interview, Dave Eggers suggests they do life drawing together. The novelist, who dropped out of art school but has been drawing for decades, has set his new book "Contrapposto" in the art world. Since the pandemic, Eggers has been organizing regular life drawing sessions at the offices of McSweeney's, the publishing house he founded in 1998. He believes drawing helps cultivate empathy: "In three hours of drawing a human, you learn so much about them."

Eggers, 56, has written more than a dozen novels, half a dozen nonfiction books, and children's books. He has launched many nonprofits aimed at reducing barriers to literature and the arts. His latest venture is Art + Water, a free arts center in San Francisco where 10 established artists mentor 20 emerging local artists. Eggers criticizes the cost of an MFA degree, which can reach $100,000 a year, calling it "absurd" and part of an "arts industrial complex."

After drawing, Eggers shows the International Library of Youth Writing, which displays books written by children. The library is located in a former commercial space that Eggers turned into a pirate supply store to comply with zoning laws. Children can write with pen or typewriter, make zines, and even send letters via a physical mailbox with a real curator. Eggers says children always prefer tactile options over screens.

When asked about AI, Eggers says it's a deeper challenge than any other. He tells students they are unique: "You're one of one. Only you have your brain. Only you can tell a story in a particular way. Why would you cede that to a machine?" He warns: "Once you have a machine think and write for you, you're cooked as a species." Eggers is part of a lawsuit against Anthropic for unauthorized use of his books to train AI. He believes that eventually there will be a countermovement against AI in education, similar to resistance against smartphones for teens.

Eggers writes first drafts by hand and transfers them to a 1998 Mac that has never been online. He uses a flip phone and has no social media. His new novel "Contrapposto," which took 20 years to complete, spans six decades and follows two artists' friendship and thwarted romance. Eggers says it took turning 50 to realize that people are surprisingly consistent.