Is it real? by Eric Beetner

 How do you see AI changing the landscape for better or worse for authors?

This is THE hot topic for discussion any time a group of writers gets together these days.

The short answer, in my opinion, is that it will make things worse.

Not only is there already a division within the writing community among writers who abhor all things AI and the (luckily) few who are embracing it, but what constitutes  some use of AI before it is deemed “Cheating” is a vague and undefined line.

We’d all be lost without spell check, which has been an early form of artificial intelligence we all embraced decades ago. There are small ways in which assistance from the electronic brains on our desks or in our laps helps us every day. The obvious line in the sand is asking a computer to write a full draft of something. There is just no world in which that is considered writing. Same with an outline or writing prompt, if only for the fact that these systems have all learned by devouring the work of others and regurgitating it.

The argument, of course, is that we all do the same by taking in influences and inspiration from other authors all the time, but there is something quite different from being influenced by great art and then reinterpreting it through your creative process versus asking a computer to simply spit out a paint-by-numbers version of the same thing.

Recently we’ve seen the looming AI flood begin to recede a bit. Companies aren’t  thriving the way they wanted to and the public is rejecting the force-feeding of AI into every aspect of our lives. This is a good thing and I hope it continues. AI technology has so many amazing capabilities to improve our lives. The fact is, nobody asked for it to take over creative endeavors. We want improvements in medicine, automation of drudgery tasks and a million invisible uses we’ll never know about. We want our art to continue to be human and for the AI technology to open more time and creative space for that to happen.

One of the most insidious evils of AI in our lives, and one thing that is already out of the box no matter how much AI begins to shrink into the background, is the doubt it casts over what is real and what is not.

From deepfake photos, Instagram videos that are fabricated, news articles and, yes, full novels, we have doubt now about what has been computer generated and what is still being made by humans. Once that doubt creeps in, it is hard to ever trust again.

Accusations fly and when that happens, false accusations are inevitable. We’ve seen contracts cancelled already due to AI being exposed during the writing process. We’ve seen people claim that use of the em dash is a signifier of AI usage, when those of us who use em dashes sit here, innocent, but caught in the crossfire.

I have found it easy to simply avoid any use of AI tools entirely. I don’t even entertain the thought of using them. That doesn’t save me from the skeptics who start to see all writing as assisted writing. The simple fact that it exists out there makes what we do suspect and that is an awful feeling.

I don’t think I know any writers, personally, who are using AI for their work. I do know writers who are using it for cover art, promotional videos, graphic work. I steer clear of all of it both for not wanting to support an industry intent on making human effort in the arts obsolete, the environmental impacts of AI, and the soul-sucking dullness of not taking the time and effort to create something. 

Whenever I’ve heard these tech bros speak about the uses of AI in the arts – writing, music, film – it is always painfully obvious they lack the skills to do any of it and they simply don’t understand the creative process. I saw an interview with some tech guy who claimed nobody liked making music any more. He said you had to get good at an instrument, which took years of practice and effort, you had to learn production tools and music theory. Any musician knows that YES! THAT’S THE FUN PART!

Same, too, with writing. Is it easier to plug in “write my a mystery in the style of Agatha Christie” and be done? Yes. Is it satisfying? Not in the least. Certainly not as satisfying as devising a plot, creating misleads and red herrings, devising an ingenious solution, tying it all together and making it live with full-blooded characters from your own imagination. A computer could never replace that.

AI is here to stay in one form or another. How much we let it through the door of our creative arts is up to us. I say stay out, full stop. Don’t give it an inch. Don’t be tempted by the ease of it. Or if you do, don’t dare call yourself a writer.