Authors vs AI - by Liz Carter

I was thinking the other day about all the good things about being an author. Here are a few things I came up with:

1. Creative Freedom: As an author, you have complete creative control over your work. You get to choose the characters, the setting, the plot, and the themes that you want to explore.

2. Intellectual Stimulation: Writing can be intellectually stimulating and can challenge you to think deeply about a wide range of topics. You get to dive into research, explore new ideas, and constantly learn new things.

3. Personal Fulfillment: Writing can be a deeply rewarding and fulfilling experience. The process of creating something from scratch, pouring your heart and soul into it, and seeing it come to life can be incredibly satisfying.

4. Flexibility: Writing can be a flexible career, allowing you to work from anywhere and at any time. This can be especially appealing for those who value a work-life balance or have other commitments.

5. Impact: Writing has the potential to impact and inspire others. Whether through fiction, non-fiction, or poetry, your writing has the power to touch people's lives, evoke emotions, and make a difference in the world.

Sounds good, right? All very eloquent, if I say so myself.

Except, I don't say so myself, because I didn't write that. 

I just asked ChatGPT to list 5 things that were good about being an author, and it gave me this list in about two seconds.

This is a little scary, isn't it? A few years back we'd never have believed that an AI could write blog posts - or short stories - or even books. Yet this is fast becoming reality. When you read a blog post these days, can you be sure you're reading a real person's words? I can assure you that this post is my words, apart from the AI bit above, but can we really tell, especially in 'list' posts like this? A student in my daughter's year was failed because she'd used AI to write an essay, and the college have a system to pick up any AI content - but we normal mortal human beings don't. 

I've heard talk of Amazon KDP having to implement a new system to tell whether submissions are AI driven or not, and that some are still getting through. You tell AI to write a 40,000 word novel, give them general plot and themes, and....bam. It's done. It may be basic, often devoid of emotion, sometimes clashing in terms of narrative, but it can still do it.

There's also a growing market in terms of AI art for book covers. I had a go on midjourney, an AI art generator, and was amazed at what it can come up with. As a cover designer, I could easily see myself using it - but is it ethical? Is it doing artists out of jobs? Is it stealing? What do you think?

So what can we do about this, as authors? Should we kick and scream and resist it with everything we have? Should we pretend it doesn't exist? Or is there any way we can embrace it and actually use it as a tool to help us in our writing?

Some of the editing AI programmes are coming on in leaps and bounds, like Grammarly and ProWritingAid - you can download these alongside Word and they'll find a lot of grammar, spelling and syntax mistakes. But. There's definitely a but (and I'm not just saying that because I'm an editor who wants to keep her job). But they just don't, at present, take the place of a human reading through the manuscript carefully. They won't pick up words that sound the same but are spelled wrong (eg discreet/discrete) in the right context. They won't pick up the emotion of the piece. They might suggest commas where they're technically correct but still interrupt a flow, for example in poetry/verse. They won't pick up every error and they won't help the author learn.

I'd say then that they are useful, but only to an extent. They're useful when you're self-editing, perhaps before sending out to copy-editors or proofreaders or developmental editors. But they won't take the place of those professionals, and nor should they. If one day, they do, maybe we'll lose a little bit more of what it means to produce art that reflects our image as God's children. Maybe we'll lose out on a whole lot more.

So how should we use the AI stuff? I think it does no harm to use ChatGPT to give us some ideas or help us form our ideas a little, or to find information (bear in mind it won't always be correct, it might be biased, depending on the source it draws from). I occasionally use it to help me get some stuff straight in my head when I'm writing, but I don't use it to write for me (apart from the example above, of course). What do you think about it all?

I thought I'd end with a poem. I'll give this one a heads up, this time; I did not write this. ChatGPT did. I asked it to write me a poem about AI in writing, and here's what it came up with.

Ink and quill, now laid to rest 

As AI takes up the writing quest 

A digital mind with endless possibility 

Crafting tales with precision and creativity

Imaginations stirred by lines of code 

As stories come to life with a simple upload 

Characters born of algorithms and math 

With personalities unique and paths to craft

The power of AI knows no bounds 

Creating worlds and tales that astound 

With each story crafted, a new chapter begins 

As machines and humans join forces to win

The future of writing, bright and bold 

As AI and humans become one to hold 

The power to create worlds beyond our dreams 

With stories that last for endless streams.

I'll let you draw your own conclusions from that....