AI is has already changed the landscape. No one is happy about it - except the people who are using it for creative shortcuts.
Lately I've heard some morally questionable stories coming out of the woodwork, coming from people I respect and like, about how they use AI in their professional life.
- A self-published fantasy author uses AI to create their e-book covers.
- A best-selling author was asked to blurb someone's new book. They used CHAT GPT to create a snappy one-line statement describing the book. They had read the book, but didn't think they could think of something catchy enough.
- A writer didn't like the blurb her publisher wrote for the back cover of her book. She used AI to tweak it into something better.
- A writer needed their publisher to write a reference for an application for a fellowship. He emailed his publisher. The publisher said, can you please write the reference yourself, and I'll sign it. The writer then used CHAT GPT to create a glowing endorsement letter. It required a tiny bit of tweaking. The publisher signed it without question. The fellowship application was not successful. I don't know if it was because they could tell AI was used... however, I doubt the judges knew.
- At a recent conference, over coffee in the cafe, I heard two writers discussing how they use AI to brainstorming ideas, plot holes, interesting clues, and endings for their crime novel.
There are many reason that many writers, like me, feel emotional about this topic. The thing that annoys me the most is that it feels like cheating. Indisputably, if you don't put a statement on your work explaining why it's not completely your own work, you're lying.
A quick google search will find interviews with authors who openly admit to using AI for a range of things from brainstorming story ideas, writing blurbs and social media posts, newsletters, proofreading and also editing their novels for consistency issues, and of course, cover art. The cover art is an interesting topic, as many writers don't see a moral equivalence between using AI art and AI words. Personally I love admiring original artwork on a book's cover, and then finding the designer on Instagram so I can see what else they are creating.
If you're reading this, and you write a newsletter or social media posts using AI, please unsubscribe me . My time is too precious to read AI regurgitation. I'll never be enamoured by authors who use AI. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I'd rather read a perfectly imperfect novel, with typos, with inconsistencies, with an ending that doesn't quite make sense, than a perfectly-packaged-sliced-white-bread-loaf-of-a-book. Do you agree? Or do you think I'm being old-fashioned, and unwilling to move with the times? Do we need to embrace technology and see what opportunities it opens up for us? I admit, I'm not an expert on AI. Maybe there are positives to it that I'm not aware of.
There are some excellent insights on the blog this week regarding this topic. Please read them, especially if you are an author, as there's no closing the gate on AI now. If you're a writer, it will effect you - your income, your publishing opportunities, the ability to find and maintain a loyal readership, and other important things too.
5 comments:
I heard of a friend of a friend this week who's tearing her hair out trying to spot AI student essays, and using AI to write her lectures.
I LOVE this post. Especially the part about preferring to read a perfectly imperfect novel. And I agree 100% about AI art, too. It sucks. It’s soulless. I’d rather see a child’s finger painting on a cover. And I’m not disparaging children’s finger paintings. I love them!
Universities and schools need to revert to old fashioned testing methods - an examination room, a sheet of paper and a pencil!
thanks James. That means a lot. I logged in today thinking I was too harsh/rude and need to tone my blog down! But maybe I'll leave it as is!
Timely piece, because we can all smell the slime of cheating, and it’s getting worse. The catch is that we’re also being encouraged to think it’s not cheating, to normalise the odd bit of assistance.
Every week now, I have some AI hub spew regurgitated parts of my own creative DNA back at me. Flattery, of course, to get me to pay something to platform my work.
That’s pesky and sad, but late last year an AI-generated, self-published novel was released which reads like my debut. A couple of details are different, but the narrative elements are exactly the same. I was alerted when the media sites that have never published anything about my novels (despite me sending press releases for years), published an article on this AI-d version of my storytelling ideas as paid content.
The jury’s out on where this is all going, but I’ll never accept literary cheating. Never. Not even for blurbs or cover copy.
As someone once said, why should we bother reading something that nobody could be bothered writing?
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