Every writer working through the AI revolution should read Robin Williams’ monologue in Good Will Hunting.
Williams’ character, Sean Maguire, is a therapist working with Will Hunting, a troubled mathematical prodigy played by Matt Damon.
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During a session, Will disrespects Sean’s late wife.
A few days later, Sean addresses it with him:
“I thought about what you said to me,” Sean says. “I stayed up half the night thinking about it. Then something occurred to me and I fell into a deep, peaceful sleep and I haven’t thought about you since. You know what occurred to me?”
“No.”
“You’re just a kid,” Sean says. “You don’t have the faintest idea of what you’re talking about.”
“Why, thank you,” Will says.
“It’s alright,” Sean says. “You’ve never been out of Boston?”
“Nope.”
“So if I asked you about art, you’d probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo. You know a lot about him. Life’s work, political aspirations, him and the Pope, sexual orientation — the whole works, right?”
Will doesn’t speak.
“But I bet you can’t tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You’ve never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling.”
Will doesn’t speak.
“If I asked you about women, you’d probably give me a syllabus of your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can’t tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy.”
Quiet.
“You’re a tough kid,” Sean says. “If I ask you about war you’d probably throw Shakespeare at me — ‘Once more into the breach, dear friends’ — but you’ve never been near one. You’ve never held your best friend’s head in your lap and watched him gasp his last breath, looking to you for help.”
Quiet.
“If I asked you about love, you’d probably quote me a sonnet,” Sean says. “But you’ve never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable, known someone who could level you with her eyes. Feeling like God put an angel on Earth just for you, who could rescue you from the depths of hell — and you wouldn’t know what it’s like to be her angel, to have that love for her be there forever, through anything, through cancer.”
Quiet, quiet.
“I look at you and I don’t see an intelligent, confident man. I see a cocky, scared kid,” Sean says. “But you’re a genius, Will. No one denies that. No one could possibly understand the depths of you. But you presumed to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine and you ripped my life apart.”
The camera’s on Will now, a placid expression on his face.
“You’re an orphan, right?” Sean says.
Will looks down.
“Do you think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are because I read Oliver Twist?” Sean says. “Does that encapsulate you?”
Will looks up.
“Personally, I don’t care about all that because you know what?” Sean says, “I can’t learn anything from you I can’t read in some book. Unless you wanna talk about you, who you are. Then I’m fascinated — I’m in,” he says. “But you don’t wanna do that, do you, Sport? You’re terrified of what you might say.”
Will Hunting (left) and Sean Maguire
I’ll never tell you not to use AI writing tools.
Because I use them — and I know how they’ve helped me work faster, smarter.
It’s why my own newsletter is sponsored by Writer, a generative AI tool. But for all its potential, all its genius, AI is just that: a tool, a machine designed to fetch information. Like Will Hunting’s brain, it’s beautiful in its recall but flawed in its ability to connect, to be personal, vulnerable.
AI is a genius, cocky, scared kid.
It’s able to do so much, so quickly — except be human. It can’t do that.
It’s able to tell you about anything, about art and war and love — but it can’t express these things in a patently human way, a nuanced way. It can’t.
It can’t crawl your brain, regurgitating your personal experiences and emotions. Only you can access yourself. Only you can share your life, the happenstance moments, the trials and triumphs, the details that are unique to you but understood by all, felt by all. Because we’re all the same.
Only you can do these things.
But do you want to?
This is the question. Do you want to write about yourself, who you are? Terrifying as it may be, will you? Will you be a writer who does this?
Because then we’re fascinated — we’re in.
“Your move, Chief,” Sean says.
He stands up and walks away, leaving Will to consider what he must do to evolve.
Yes, indeed: your move.
