I want to enter this conversation from a place of respect. I understand that you and I are on polar opposite sides, here. I also understand that even though I am autistic, writing has been one of the things that came easily to me, from an early age.

But with that being said, you are very wrong, here.

I come at this from a few different angles: first as someone who went to a special needs school and saw a lot of different kids using accessible tools that were all legitimately helpful, such as dragon speech and grammarly. Second, as someone who became an educator and worked with kids who are entering this AI-afflicted world before they have the ability to organize their thoughts, and third as a writer myself, seeing what it is doing to the writing community. I'll go over each of these angles and the thoughts it leads me to.

First: I have absolutely seen accessibility tools used to great effect! Excellent, excellent tools that help people who do not have writing skills for whatever reason, which help them learn to write rather than replacing their writing. I've seen brail keyboards and computers for blind kids which allow them to write essays and surf the internet. This is *not* an attack on accessibility tools. My problem with the entire essay you've written is that you blur the line between those accessibility tools, which are good for people's writing, and GenAI, which is not. Here's the main point I'll keep coming back to: AI is dangerous to human thought, when not used by someone who is already skilled in the subject matter they are using it for: tech.yahoo.com/ai/artic…

What this means is that, from a disability standpoint: AI is most dangerous to the people who would be most reliant upon it. It can warp and distort their thoughts, there's even research that shows that it makes people *think* that what they produce with AI was what they meant the whole time, even when it's slightly off. You use your own example, but in doing so you make it clear that you were *already* someone capable of expressing your thoughts, otherwise you would not have succeeded in academia. For you, I'm sympathetic to the idea that AI is easing the strain. I've seen the other side.

Second, as an educator: The other side is this. The human brain legitimate DOES learn by running up against a struggle that it cannot overcome, and then changing in response to overcome that struggle, ever so slightly. "Changing" can mean learning, or it can mean learning how to think, or even changing the way you think entirely. (This is not to be mourned, there are a lot of problematic ways of thinking). You've overcome those cognitive struggles. The students I've worked with have not, and their access to AI has done absolutely horrible things to their ability to think independently. ESPECIALLY from those with neurological differences or disabilities, for whom AI becomes so tempting, not as a way to get out thoughts that are *already present* (otherwise education would be useless), but as a way to get out of needing to think or understand the things that the teacher wants you to think or understand. Because that is hard. This is the way that the unskilled use AI. They have no incentive to use it any other way.

Third, as a writer: You attack a strawman, here. The strawman is a writer who doesn't want other people to write, or a communicator who doesn't want other people to communicate, because they would then lose their communication privileges. Perhaps it's a partial strawman, perhaps such a person exists. But I know it's not me, or any of the people around me. We want people to express themselves. Literary agents practically beg for books written by neurodivergent writers, (albeit ones that can be understood by neurotypical readers, because that's the business.) And again: no other tool has brought on this scrutiny. No dictation software, no grammar-editing or spellcheck software, nothing else that has ever helped anyone get their words down.

It's because no other tool has ever changed the shape of written thought. And that changing of the shape of thought is where the line needs to be drawn. Because once you change the way you are thinking, on the page, who is to say that what remains is fully, entirely human? As far as not thinking the subjectively 'right' way, that is the struggle of being neurodivergent, a struggle I've dealt with, because while I am gifted when it comes to writing, I've struggled to get neurotypical people to latch on to my ideas. Books that demonstrate strange and unconventional methods of thought are generally unpopular, but exist, and often attract praise from the openminded. Everything from Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar, to House of Leaves, to, on a more commentary-based level, The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery.

But all of these weird books that have attracted positive attention and critical praise have one thing in common: They demonstrate an author's unvarnished thoughts. Unconventional as they are, unsuited for the the average neurotypical reader as they are, they are from cover to cover the work of a human being who never prompted a machine to reorganize their thoughts.

Be weird. Be you. Write in the way that is comfortable to you, even. Bravely assert who you are even if it makes neurotypicals uncomfortable. But don't use AI.