Nagaland Literature Festival by Writers Collective Kohima explores storytelling in the AI era.
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KOHIMA — Nagaland Literature Festival by Writers Collective Kohima began at Don Bosco Higher Secondary School, Kohima on the theme 'Art and Artifice: Storytelling in the age of AI.'
Poet, novelist and short story writer, Easterine Kire, who presented herself as a secret anti AI activist, noted that AI and ChatGTP are not modern day blessings.
"They are a very fancy way for you to announce, Hi I am using AI because my brain is dead," Kire stated in her keynote address which was read out by Adenuo Shirat Luikham.
She added that behind all the amazing inventions was a human brain not AI.
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"If you stop using your brain, your amazing technicolor touch the moon brain, you are going to regress and slowly lose the ability to think, to invent, to create and so on," she warned in her statement.
Noting that AI is a tool, she said, humans would be stupid to think they can use it to write assignments and books, and tell stories.
"How would AI know all the nuances of our cultural landscape to be able to write our stories? I think that is a non-question," she went to add.
President of Writers Collective Kohima, Vishü Rita Krocha, remarked that in today’s world of digitalisation and explosion of social media, books are still the most powerful medium in connecting people and in revealing glimpses of ourselves in each other, to reveal commonality and humanity.
"We read to explore, to dream and to escape, to walk in someone else’s shoes or to relax, also perhaps because we think it’s fun and it makes us laugh, and makes us feel less alone. Reading truly helps us make sense of the world. But imagine if we started demanding to know what you experience and learn from Facebook, Instagram or YouTube. Wouldn’t that kill the pleasure of it all?" she said.
She also informed that Writers Collective began with the endeavour to promote literature from the state of Nagaland with a primary focus of making and keeping local stories relevant because they truly believe that indigenous voices matter in search for self-discovery.
Actor, writer and content creator Merenla Imsong, said that AI can come and go, but as artist they will continue making art, because as long as humans are alive, they will make art.
In this age of social media, everything is now curated and everyone has become their own PR machine.
"We are just projecting a part of ourselves that we want others to see. We've just lost a bit of our souls in this race to project an image that is not who we truly are, and social media is really, really pushing that," she said.
She added that it’s difficult to keep one's soul intact in a world that is becoming soulless. That is where art comes in to save.
Reuben Gauci, High Commissioner of the Republic of Malta to India, spoke briefly at the event. Other delegates present at the event were Dr Olga V Gauci, spouse of the High Commissioner of the Republic of Malta to India; Norbert Bugeja, literature professor; Desiree Cassar, lawyer; and Sahil Tandon, businessman.
The two-day NLF, which will culminate on December 13, is supported by NSDMA, Department of Art & Culture and Department of Youth Resources & Sports