“If you are going through a painful experience, I want you to know that it is a difficult journey, but there are moments of hope and connection along the way. You may not see it now, but there is always a way forward. You are not alone. Reach out to others for support, find joy in the present moment, stay focused, and never give up. You are stronger than you know, and you will get through this.”

I read these words from my phone to Bill as we lay in bed together a few months ago. He was deep into a huge, old, gold-embossed book titled The History of Music. He looked up, “Very kind and thoughtful. Who wrote it to you?”

“A machine,” I answered simply.

Bill sat up and looked at me in total disbelief. “What machine?”

I read the description:

“ChatGPT, a new artificial intelligence chatbot that uses natural language processing to create humanlike conversational dialogue.”

Bill was in Europe with his daughter when I learnt about this new AI tool.

My mom was experiencing dementia and I wanted advice on how to deal with my emotions.

When I first saw the text appearing in front of me in a millisecond, I was shocked and frightened. My first thought was for writers. To write well is a great artistic accomplishment. It requires a lifetime of effort.

At the end of ChatGPT’s message were these consoling words “You are not alone and you are stronger than you know.”

I have used this exact line many times in my online posts to console women, particularly in war-ravaged Ukraine!

ChatGPT had looked up my work online, taken my sentence and included it to console me, all in the blink of an eye.

Bill was so upset. He shook his head. “It will never write as well as Ernest Hemingway, Joseph Conrad, or Gabriel Garcia Marquez!”

I stopped him before he continued with a list I knew would go on endlessly. “I only hope it wont”

Bill and I are from one of many generations that learnt about the world by reading books. We went to school or the library or bookstore and found stories that changed and shaped our world view.

The entire focus of my life shifted when I was a little girl and I read about oysters in a romance novel; no one where I lived in Siberia could tell me what they tasted like!

I promised myself that one day I would escape to the West and try these mystical mollusks.

Books inspired me to be free, brave and adventurous, especially Jack London’s novels about the Gold Rush in California and the Klondike. Eventually, I even changed my last name to London in his honour.

Bill’s life took a turn when he was 14 and read legendary underwater explorer, Jacque Cousteau’s, The Silent World, his account of his first expedition on his research ship the Calypso to test the new aqualung equipment that allowed one to breathe underwater.

This is his story:

“It was the birth of scuba diving, and I wanted more than anything to be on that ship. I worked each summer at the first dive company in Bermuda.

“By eighteen, I was the youngest licensed dive instructor in Bermuda’s history, and by 20, after more than a thousand dives, I flew to Marseilles, France, where the Calypso was berthed.

“It wasn’t completely out of the blue. I had helped the Calypso crew when they were docked in St George’s for a week, and I knew the captain slightly. Nonetheless, he was shocked to see me in Marseilles.

“I appealed to him for a job as a diver on-board. Perhaps, impressed by my initiative, he told me they were preparing for an expedition to Greece to recover an ancient shipwreck.

“He introduced me to the chief diver, the legendary Albert Falco. Next thing I knew, I had tossed my gear on a bunk, and was diving the next day with Falco and Chief diver, Bernard Delemotte.

“They wanted to test me, and in grim silence the three of us drove a small inflatable boat to the cliffs outside the harbour.

“Over the side we went in their special futuristic dive gear. At 60 feet in a murky current they suddenly motioned for me to take off my double tank aqualung and exchange it with theirs.

“More tests followed. I passed, and we collected a basket of sea urchins from the bottom and ate them later on the rocks. We drank a cold bottle of white wine together. I met Jacques Cousteau after that.

This is the start of a long story, but none of it would have happened without the lyrical magic of Cousteau’s book, The Silent World and I dedicated the next twenty years of my life to documentary filmmaking, where I worked as a cinematographer and eventually, Director.”

Bill and I are happy we never had ChatGPT to write the books we read. We fell under the spell of real authors telling their stories in a way only they could do.

Books are how one human being shares their imagination, their experiences and their vision.

They are a portal into the world of humanity. May this doorway always be open, unlocked by a person, not a machine.

• Nina London is the founder of Mermaid Wellness Centre for Women and a certified Chi Gong and Laughter Yoga teacher. Her mission is to support and inspire mature women to make positive changes in their bodies and mind. Contact her at www.mermaidwellness.com and on Instagram: mermaid_wellness