Is ‘written by hand’ the same as ‘handwritten’?

There’s a company in the U.S that uses A.I. and robotics to write and deliver handwritten letters. If your mom is sick, your friend is getting married, or if you want to write to a long-lost friend, then you need not lose sleep over it. Upload samples of your handwriting to a website. Then describe the occasion for which you want the machines to produce a message, and a few days later, a handwritten letter in your handwriting and tone of voice will be delivered to your dear loved one.

Would you use this service?

A handwritten letter is many times more valuable than a typed letter. And it is even more valuable than one generated by A.I. Except, on this occasion, the letter is generated by AI and not handwritten. The question, therefore, is whether it carries the same value.

Let’s assume that the recipient never finds out that machines produced the letter. It could be argued that the letter would still hold as much value as a real one. After all, if x is indistinguishable from y, then x is y. Let’s stretch this idea even further. Suppose that it takes x (as an ingredient) to produce y (as a product) and that there are two different processes by which y is produced from x. In this case, Y produced by process A is the same as Y produced by process B? It could be argued that Y, as produced from process A, is the same as Y from process B because they are indistinguishable. In other words, Y1 is Y2.

Let us stretch the thought experiment even further. Suppose that process A takes 3 hours to produce Y, while process B only takes 3 minutes. Recall that the final product from both processes is indistinguishable. Could it still be said that Y1 and Y2 are the same?

At a molecular level — if I could venture to say that — Y1 and Y2 would still be the same. However, we do not value things merely because of how they are constituted. We embellish objects with stories, and in many instances, these stories carry more value than the object.

When a letter is written by hand, we magine someone behind a desk or lying on a bed or sitting under a tree. We picture them writing a draft and shredding it, and starting again. We imagine them pacing about a room and reading the letter out loud to themselves or a confidant before committing it to an envelope. Perhaps they lick a stamp before commuting to the postoffice to turn it in, all while carrying the recipient in mind.

On the other hand, if the letter is handwritten, suppose by some machine and some algorithm — none of this happens. The handwritten letter, therefore, lacks the spiritual intercourse infused in the former example. What we value is not so much things, but what we pour into them with our imagination.

Perhaps, after all, the utility and productive value that AI promises will only go so far. We will value the coffee stains on the letter, the trip to the post office, and the idea that all of it entailed holding someone in one’s mind for a few days, if not weeks.

Maybe handwritten is different from written by hand.