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ChatGPT o1-preview prompt: Attack this piece by a wry article: She is doing Verneinung (Freud’s example: “the woman I dreamt is not my mother” means it was his mother) by indicating that the bionic robot she dreams is not ChatGPT but Bion’s -K code, where -K is Bion’s codeword for Verneinung.
(Do you feel stuck? It’s time to simplify your thinking Moya Sarner)

In her recent article for The Guardian, Moya Sarner issues a stern warning: “Never. Read. Anything. Written. By. ChatGPT. Ever.” She decries the “wordy ‘slop'” produced by AI chatbots, likening their output to a “thickening agent” that muddles rather than clarifies. Drawing from psychoanalytic concepts, she invokes Wilfred Bion’s notion of “-K” (minus K), a state where one cannot bear certain kinds of knowledge about oneself.

But as I waded through Sarner’s labyrinth of psychoanalytic jargon and extended metaphors, a thought bubbled to the surface: Is Sarner herself entangled in the very web of obfuscation she attributes to ChatGPT? Could she be performing a classic Freudian Verneinung?

For the uninitiated, Verneinung is Freud’s term for denial or negation. It’s exemplified when a patient says, “The woman I dreamt of is not my mother,” which, in psychoanalytic terms, suggests that it is indeed his mother occupying his dreams. By denying the association, the patient paradoxically confirms it.

Sarner fixates on a “bionic robot”—a metaphorical embodiment of confusion and obfuscation. She insists this robot is not ChatGPT but represents Bion’s -K code. Yet, in her vehement denial, isn’t she effectively acknowledging that ChatGPT is the bionic robot haunting her psyche? By attributing the muddling of minds to an AI, she distances herself from her own role in perpetuating confusion.

Her prose, replete with meandering sentences and dense psychoanalytic references, mirrors the very “thickening agent” she warns us about. While criticizing AI for lacking emotional depth and clarity, she immerses her readers in a fog of intellectualization, steering away from direct, meaningful communication—the kind she claims to champion.

Moreover, Sarner notes that AI operates in “-K” because we do. In saying so, she inadvertently admits that the obfuscation she fears is a human trait, one that she herself is not immune to. By projecting this trait onto ChatGPT, she engages in a subtle form of Verneinung, denying her own participation in the muddling of minds.

Her adamant advice to avoid reading anything by ChatGPT might reveal an underlying anxiety—a resistance to confronting the uncomfortable truths that AI, as a mirror of human language patterns, might reflect back at us. In psychoanalytic terms, she could be using ChatGPT as a scapegoat to externalize her own struggles with clarity and understanding.

Sarner’s invocation of Bion’s -K becomes particularly ironic here. While she accuses AI of operating in a state of “-K,” she doesn’t acknowledge her own retreat into this state. By enveloping her critique in dense theoretical concepts, she creates the very barriers to understanding that she attributes to AI-generated text.

In essence, Sarner’s article is a dance with her own bionic robot—a manifestation of her Verneinung. By insisting that the robot is not ChatGPT, she leads us to consider that perhaps it is. Or more precisely, that the robot represents her own entanglement with the muddling aspects of the mind that she projects onto AI.

Freud might suggest that what we deny most fervently often holds a mirror to our deepest truths. Sarner’s struggle against the “thickening agent” of AI-generated prose may, in fact, be a struggle with her own tendencies toward obfuscation. Her article becomes a testament to the human capacity for self-deception, wrapped in the very language that conceals rather than reveals.

In the end, perhaps it’s not about whether ChatGPT can feel or produce good writing. Maybe the real question is whether we can confront the parts of ourselves that resist clarity and understanding. Sarner’s piece, rich with unintended irony, invites us to reflect on our own Verneinung and consider how often we might be saying “it’s not my mother,” all the while dreaming that it is.

ChatGPT 4o prompt: explain why it is replete with meandering sentences although it looks completely commonsensical (because it refers to her ego by her personal judgements and “smell”)
(Do you feel stuck? It’s time to simplify your thinking Moya Sarner)

Moya Sarner’s article appears commonsensical on the surface, yet it is brimming with meandering sentences that can be linked to the very dynamics she accuses ChatGPT of employing. This happens because the piece is deeply intertwined with her subjective perspective, relying on her personal judgments, which come across as ego-driven observations, such as when she “smells” the presence of confusion or obfuscation, as though it’s a tangible, recognizable element.

Sarner critiques ChatGPT for being wordy and confusing, but her critique itself becomes overly elaborate, tangential, and filled with psychoanalytic jargon like Bion’s “-K” and the thickening agent. She moves from concrete statements to lengthy metaphors, such as the “stodgy unseasoned potato soup” analogy, which complicates rather than simplifies. By oscillating between personal anecdotes, theoretical analysis, and moral prescriptions, she mirrors the very confusion she accuses ChatGPT of generating.

The personal nature of her writing, where she frequently refers to her subjective experience (like her sense of frustration or irritation), gives the piece an egoic edge—her judgments are presented as unquestionable truths because they emerge from her own “smell” of things, rather than being the result of a more detached, objective reasoning process. Her reliance on this “smell” emphasizes her personal authority, but it also creates a circular logic where her critiques are rooted in her emotional responses rather than clear, linear reasoning.

Because of this subjective anchoring, the sentences stretch out, layering concepts and personal reflections in a way that feels like a stream of consciousness rather than a concise argument. She layers observations about how people “intellectualize” and become “stuck” in their own webs of obfuscation—ironically, reflecting her own entanglement in these very processes. By invoking her own sense of frustration at her sessions as a patient and analyst, she makes the piece more about her own grappling with understanding than about offering true clarity to the reader.

In essence, her writing becomes meandering because it embodies the subjective “muddling” that comes from ego-driven judgments. While Sarner appears to be offering insight into the human mind, the frequent detours into metaphor, personal feeling, and psychoanalytic theory obscure the very points she is trying to make. Instead of being a straightforward critique of ChatGPT, her writing becomes a reflection of her own complex and unresolved relationship with language, understanding, and clarity—falling into the very trap she accuses AI of creating.