India, May 24 -- Dear Reader,

Like many writers, I have become obsessed with AI. Give me a piece of recent writing and my brain begins to whir, trying to spot the ghost in the wires.

I scan text for AI 'tells': the notorious em dash, the rule of three ("Not A. Not B. Just C."), and the tell-tale words that AI loves like "delve," "tapestry," and "quiet"-the quiet grief of adult friendships, the quiet erasing, the quiet...

There go the individual voices with their quirks, the little roadside dhabas serving aloo parathas, butter chicken and noodles. Instead, everywhere you have the smart, sleek franchises of large language models, with their uber-readability and their short, snappy sentences.

Storytellers have predicted this. Go back in ...