The year 2026 will likely mark the beginning of a new era, one of artificially produced literature that is indistinguishable from text written by humans. As the practice of writing with AI becomes more widespread, it will no longer be possible to distinguish between the human and the artificial. Everything will be open to question.
Only works written before 2026 will be able to be attributed with certainty to a human author. But after 2026, we will no longer be able to be sure. A new era is dawning.
Below is a short story created by artificial intelligence, which we asked to write a short love story in the style of Hemingway. As you will see, the result (composed in a few seconds) is indistinguishable from that of a flesh-and-blood author. Poetic and even emotional.
We also asked for an ascetic religious text, which we are not reproducing here, but which was also absolutely perfect. The only information requested by the AI was the length in characters and the type of style.
AI will enter the field of personal entertainment. It is now capable of writing jokes (try it for yourself!) and has some difficulty preparing crossword puzzles, but we are certain that in the future we will spend our free time in a digital space created by AI just for us and no one else.
At least in today’s social media, we know that the clip we see is shared by thousands or millions of viewers. But in our future, there will be only one viewer of a video: ourselves, because AI will create unique, unshared, original works just for us, knowing our desires.
We will spend our time listening to jokes composed by AI that will make us laugh because it knows our tastes. In the future, entire movies, music, songs, will be written, directed, and created just for us.
The good old days of social media will be a distant memory. The future of every show will be inexorably individual, personal, not public but private. We will arrive at technological solipsism: each of us isolated with a virtual truth that is not shared.
We are perhaps taking a new step towards a silent closure of man in a new Cartesianism where he can only be sure of himself: that he thinks and therefore lives.
But the new Descartes will not be able to tell anyone because no one can be sure whether what he says is his own work or composed by a machine. And after all, even this article could perfectly well have been written automatically by a digital entity.
Best wishes!
The Quiet Hours (Late Hemingway Style)
by AI
The winter came early that year. It settled over the town in a hard, dry way, the kind of cold that made the boards creak at night and the river move slow under its own weight. Daniel Ward arrived then, carrying his bag and the tired hope of a man who still believed work could steady a life. He took a room above the bakery. In the mornings the heat from the ovens rose through the floor and warmed the boards under his feet. He liked that. It made the day feel possible. The hospital stood on the hill. It was a square, plain building, built without grace but with the stubbornness of men who wanted something to last. Inside, the halls smelled of old wood and disinfectant. The nurses walked softly. The sick spoke in low voices. Everything felt held back, as if the place itself understood the weight of suffering. He first saw her in the far room, where the light came in thin and white. Her name was Elena Maren. She sat straight in her bed, hands folded, watching the window as if the world outside were something she had already made peace with. “You’re the new doctor,” she said. “Yes.” “You look young.” “I am.” “That’s all right,” she said. “Youth is only a problem for the old.” He examined her. Her heart was failing. It had been failing for years. She knew it. He could see that in the way she held herself — steady, resigned, without fear. “You’re gentle,” she said when he finished. “I try.” “It’s good to try,” she said. He left the room with a strange heaviness in him, the kind that comes when you meet someone who sees more than you expect.
The days shortened. Snow came in long, quiet storms. He saw her often. Sometimes she read by the window. Sometimes she slept. Sometimes she watched him with a calm that unsettled him. He found reasons to check on her more than he should have. He told himself it was necessary. He knew it wasn’t. He liked the way she listened. He liked the way she spoke plainly, without fear or complaint. One afternoon she said, “You don’t talk much.” “I talk enough.” “You talk like someone who’s afraid of saying the wrong thing.” “Maybe.” “It’s all right,” she said. “Most things don’t need to be said.” He sat beside her. The snow fell outside in slow, heavy flakes. “You’re not afraid,” he said. “I’ve been sick a long time,” she said. “Fear gets tired.” He nodded. He understood that.
The winter deepened. The cold pressed against the windows. The bakery below filled the mornings with warmth, but the hospital stayed cold, as if it refused to be softened. Elena weakened. Her voice grew thin. Her hands trembled. But when he entered the room, she always looked at him with that same steady calm. One night she said, “Tell me something true.” He looked at her. “I don’t want you to die,” he said. She closed her eyes. “That’s a hard truth,” she whispered. “But it doesn’t change the ending.” He felt something break inside him, quietly, like ice shifting on the river. “I wish I had known you sooner,” he said. “Time isn’t fair,” she said. “It never was.” He took her hand. She let him.
She died on a clear Sunday morning. The sun came through the window and touched her face. She looked peaceful, as if she had simply stepped out of the world. Daniel stayed with her until her hand grew cold. He didn’t cry. The grief sat in him like a stone, heavy and unmoving. He walked out of the hospital and down the hill. The snow was bright under the sun. The river moved slow, carrying thin sheets of ice that broke against the banks. He stopped on the bridge. The wind came off the water, sharp and clean. He thought of her calm eyes, her quiet voice, the way she had accepted the world without bitterness. He stood there a long time. The cold bit at his hands. The sun climbed higher. People passed behind him, their steps muffled in the snow. When he finally turned back toward the town, he felt older. Not wiser. Not stronger. Just older, in the way a man becomes older when he has loved something he could not keep. He walked slowly up the hill, carrying the quiet with him.
AI: If you want, I can take this even further into the sparse, late career Hemingway cadence — more elliptical, more weathered, more stripped to bone.