by Janis Patterson
Computers can be wonderful things. You can change or cut lines or paragraphs, move copy around, pretty much do whatever you want to do and yet end up with a clean copy with no tiresome retyping of entire manuscripts. It is a tool without compare, but it is only as good (word-wise) as the person using it.
Or it used to be. Now there is a new plague – or savior, depending on one’s viewpoint – in the machine and people are very divided about it. Just to be very clear, I am on the anti- side.
This new creature is available in many places and formats and names, and all fall under the general umbrella of ‘assisted writing programs’ – in other words, AI programs that can do a lot of the work of writing (like putting the words down) for you in a sort of simulacrum of your writing voice and style.
Doesn’t anyone see the horror of this? These programs not only check spelling (which is good) and grammar (which is all too often not so good) but they actually do varying amounts of the writing, with mechanical ease turning out copy that is more like pre-digested word salad instead of genuine writing.
I see the difference as similar to ordering a house kit (as you used to be able to) with all the lumber pre-cut and numbered, ready to put together according to the directions like a 3-D jigsaw puzzle, and then calling yourself an architect. You’re allowed to do the pretty bits – trim and paint and such, but the actual building is created miles away by a machine. Translate this to writing and you become a technician rather than a writer.
I don’t see why someone who calls themselves a writer or who hopes to become a writer using such a Frankenstein thing. Not only do they have to pay for it, and learn the probably Byzantine command structure, but they get a product that is at best only partially theirs. Instead of all this, why don’t they just learn the rules, learn the craft and learn to really write? It will serve them better longer than a computer program.
There’s a commercial on tv right now for one of these things, and one line strikes me as being particularly egregious – something about if you’re a copywriter and need a dynamite line… Having been a copywriter in one of my many wordsmith incarnations this makes me furious and appalled. In my opinion if you have to have a machine/program/whatever these things are do a great chunk of the writing for you, you aren’t any kind of a writer!
Are some people so desperate to put the word ‘writer’ or ‘author’ after their name that they will cheat with programs like these? I guess so. I personally believe if you can’t do it by yourself you shouldn’t be doing it at all.
Writers should write – not be a technician to a writing program.
Ladies of Mystery 
Amen, sister. I find this all annoying and disheartening. And it’s a combination of writers’ words they’re throwing back at us. Stolen words, to add insult to injury. Great post.
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This post describes my thoughts on the subject completely. Thanks for a great post.
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Yup. (Clicking box) “I am not a robot”
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It is scary what AI can do and it’s maddening. I get three to five emails a day from scammers and I can tell they put my book blurb in AI and said write a email that will give this glowing praise so I can take her money. They all have the same catch phrases and words.
I do use grammarly to help me with my backward sentence structure (which has been my struggle from the beginning of my writing). And when I can’t write a punchy enough blurb, I put mine up ask it to punch it up and then I take some of the words they use that makes the blurb more exciting and add them to what I have.
But I don’t use it to come up with stories or characters or write anything in the book.
Good post!
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Well, I think my feelings are a little bit more nuanced, shall we say.
I actually work in the generative AI business where I essentially get paid to teach organizations how to do everything from basic end-user generative AI to creating custom agents with wizards or code to perform complex tasks. One of the things I always tell my students is that, in a lot of ways, generative AI is like a really fancy parrot. It does not have the ability to be truly creative or truly insightful. That’s exactly what the human is for. What it does have is instant access to examples, facts, etc. When I’m on stage, I usually stick my arm out to the side and say, “Imagine you have this assistant who is on the other end of this direct message chat window. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, they are there to help you accomplish things.” That’s sort of the way I think about GenAI today. I usually also say to my students that you can imagine it’s this brand new liberal arts graduate who’s really excited and knows a lot of good stuff, but really has no idea how to accomplish most real world jobs.
As writers, there are certain things we do that I think of as grunt work or toil. It’s not me truly putting down my words on page; it’s more things I need to do to help me put words on page. We have to do research, do outlining if you’re a planner. And how do we get ideas? Do we talk to a fellow writer and bounce ideas off of them? Or do we list ideas until something hits?
One time I wrote a romance story set on the International Space Station, which I thought was kind of a cute idea, but then I realized I didn’t know much about the International Space Station. Things that I thought of as fairly basic, like if you saw the alien ship outside the ISS, how long before you could put on a spaceship and truly get out to it? It took me days and days to research those facts, and that was maybe seven years ago. These days, I could have all the facts I need about the ISS in a matter of minutes because my generative AI companion can help me figure that stuff out virtually as fast as I can ask the question.
I’m mind blind, if you’re familiar with that term. There are a few terms for it, but it essentially means that when I close my eyes, I can’t see pictures in my head. When I’m trying to do something like plan a character, I come up with some ideas, but I can’t really get a picture and that hurts me when I try to do things like describe. These days, I can go to my generative AI companion. I can describe a character that I’ve kind of come up with in theory, and I can get it to actually generate photos or paintings of that character until I find one that really works for me. Suddenly, it makes that character so much more real to me.
After writing one technical book and then swearing to never write another one ever again, about a year ago, the publisher O’Reilly talked me into doing a second technical book. It’s still a miserable experience, and I’m still not sure why I said yes. But the publisher gave me a really bad book title. I went to Generative AI. I explained the idea for my book, and I asked it to come up with 10 possible titles. I didn’t use any of them, but all of them went into my brain. I kind of said a little bit of this one with a little bit of that one, with something that I made up on my own really would work well. I had a title that I liked a lot.
I think the reality is the publishing industry is becoming a faster and faster machine. Authors are put under pressure to come out with books faster. I think generative AI has a lot of potential to make us more productive. To write it off is truly a fundamental error. I believe this is an evolve or die technology. You either evolve to work it into your process, or you’re going to get buried by the people who can.
So to all of you who are saying, “Oh, I would never use it,” I think you’re making a mistake. I absolutely agree with you that authors who come up with a paragraph description for a book idea and then get Generative AI to write the entire book are going to come up with something that, once again, is reductive or, how shall I say it, not truly original. The secret is: How can an author that is a good, original author use Generative AI to increase their productivity? That’s what I want. That’s what I tell people that they should be doing in business situations. You don’t just rubber stamp everything coming out of Generative AI. You use it to augment you. If you have a teammate, what do you have to do? You have to figure out:
That’s exactly what you need to do here. Where are your shortcomings? How can Generative AI help your process? You are still the creative genius, and you have to maintain that creative control. That is not something that Generative AI is good at, but it is good at a lot of other stuff.
When writing fiction, what are things I use GenAI for?
But you cannot just rubber-stamp what comes out of Generative AI. It makes mistakes. It creates things sometimes that are reductive or just crap. You, again, have to be the creative expert. You’re the boss. This is your worker. That’s really the way I think about it. I imagine that Generative AI is an employee I’ve hired to help me do things.
Anyway, my 2 cents 🙂
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Amen.
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Amazon is being flooded with AI written books because too many people are lazy and just want to make a quick buck. They tell AI to write a book, sit back while AI churns out some mediocre story, then they slap on a cover and their name, and upload it. And does Amazon really think the people who do this will be honest when they have to click on the button in their KDP dashboard to confirm whether AI was used in any way in the creation of the book? If you believe that, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn for sale–really cheap.
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I went through a deeply depressive bout a couple of years ago. In a blog post, I wrote about how AI will never replace writers. I was very careful to note: “this is the bit I’m writing without AI assistance,” including any misspellings or grammatical weirdness. Later, I wrote, “this is the bit I’m instructing AI to write.” AI was able to produce a very nicely ordered outline for a blog post about AI and its impact on writers. At the end of that post, I confidently proclaimed, “but it cannot replace writers… or can it?” So I instructed AI to compose a closing statement in the voice of Dylan Thomas, very careful to give credit to AI (although, there’s no telling where AI found its sources. I think a Dylan Thomas’s work is still copyright protected, having lived until the 1950s.) My thought (hope) was, he’s got a pretty distinctive, poetic style. AI is going to produce nonsensical jibberish.
Sadly, that was not the case. That was two years ago! Since my depressive bout, I’ve picked myself back up by my big girl panties and kept writing, using AI for no more than spelling, punctuation, grammar, (I’m soooo sorry, struggling editors. The work you do is big picture, more than spelling and grammar) but there was something nagging at the back of my mind. If AI could produce something pretty good, in the voice of a writer known for his unique voice, what would it be able to do in a couple of years?
Well, here we are. My social media connections with family and friends have been replaced by ubiquitous ads promoting AI certification to stay relevant in the current job market. (That may have more to do with my search history… and wouldn’t you know, AI just suggested re-ordering my words in this paragraph, and I clicked it without even thinking. I don’t remember what I wrote in the first draft. The words are all mine, but I relinquish credit for them, because AI has become such a regular part of what we do. Just assume my first draft was jhank as hell.)
Of course, I know, it’s just a tool, like so many other tools at our disposal. I’ve used it recently by inputting my resume, and having it churn out potential jobs. I was pretty surprised by what it came up with, but darned if it wasn’t (mostly) right. The jobs it suggested were people jobs. I mean, they were jobs in which small collectives of skilled artists have to work together to create a larger product – art director, senior marketing positions, and work with non-profits. It was a surprise to me, because I’ve spent my entire adult life living and working on my own damn island.
Maybe AI knows something about me I’ve missed, but has AI also pulled its own plug. Sure, the artists in that collective might, individually, use AI to streamline their workflow and production, but one thing is for sure: AI can’t replace community (this year.)
I’ve been trying to work outside my comfort zone: stop-motion animation, branding, directing, while struggling to keep up with my writing (sans AI.) I’m still struggling with getting off the island and expanding my own work with the collective power of others.
AI is here to stay… unfortunately?
“Hey, ChatGPT, generate multiple scenarios in which writers rule the world, overthrowing AI.” (Yes, I AM actually dropping that into ChatGPT.)
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You’re spot-on. I’ve can’t imagine a real writer willingly giving up her/his time with shaping sentences, choosing words, putting thought and pictures on a page. Recognizing AI work will get harder but in every piece I’ve seen I eventually see the “reveal”–the work has no heart, no original thought that makes me see life differently if only for a moment. Our challenge is how to keep this insidious device from sneaking in the back door. Great post.
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I don’t know a single writer (real ones, I mean, not lazy hacks) who would disagree with you, Janis. I’ve turned that copilot thing off from my Word documents. It irritated me to no end. Now something else that’s annoying has crept in my emails: a thing that summarizes conversations I have in email exchanges. Why? Does the machine assume that we all have memory issues or can’t reread a text? It has reached idiotic heights. And don’t get me started on the AI searches … I’ve made a habit of jumping over them, can’t trust them.
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