Let’s Talk Some More About AI

Over the 4th of a July I spent the time in the hills of New Hampshire, biking through the woods and enjoying being outside. Despite a deadline for a book that needed to be edited, I put everything aside to enjoy nature to its fullest.

All around me I saw signs of natural intelligence and it made me think of AI and the current state of writing.

Let’s have a talk about AI. Do you use it any capacity in your writing? In query’s to agents or creating a synopsis of your novel. Do you submit chapters into ChatGPT and ask for feedback? If so, you are using AI in your writing.

Have I done it? Yes, I’ve done it. Have I had reservations about using AI to assist me with my writing? By all means. It doesn’t feel ‘natural’ to me, despite it being an incredible tool that helps me hone my craft. It has also saved me a lot of time. Where I draw the line with AI is having it write, or rewrite, parts of my novel. I just can’t go there yet. But writers have used it in that way. In more than one example a writer, and publisher, has left an AI prompt in the middle of their novel, angering readers.

What do publishers think of writers using AI in their writing? Penguin Random House’s view on AI is murky. While the publisher promotes human creativity and intellectual property, it also says “we will use generative AI tools selectively and responsibly, where we see a clear case that they can advance our goals.” Hachette UK frowns upon machine creativity but advocates for “responsible experimentation with AI for operational uses”while also appreciating “the benefits of remaining curious and embracing technology.”

What is our responsibility to the reader? To simply put out the best product regardless of how it’s made? Or do we need to advise the reader how much of our work product was aided and assisted by AI? These are questions that are as complex as they are confusing.

As helpful as AI is as a tool to us writers, I must admit that this technology scares the hell out of me. But should it? I’m sure future generations will have no problem embracing it. More probable, however, is the fact that AI in the future will be solely responsible for writing books, creating music and making movies. I hate fretting about this development because the cat’s out of the bag and never going back. And with the advent of quantum computers, which will be a million times faster, AI will get much better at drawing from all sources to create something marketable and entertaining.

The reality is that computers don’t think. They gather up existing information and use it to synthesize. Humans think and that might be the one thing that gives me hope for the future. To quote Alva Noe, a philosophy professor at the University of California, “If there is intelligence in the vicinity of pencils, shoes, cigarette lighters, maps or calculators, it is the intelligence of their users and inventors. The digital is no different.”

For now, I’m using AI as a tool to help me become a better writer, but I’m drawing the line at letting it actually do the hard work of creating a story out of thin air.