Artificial intelligence is here. The genie, as they say, is out of the bottle. And while there is a lot of discussion, even outrage over what some consider to be the “theft” involved in Artificial Intelligence, is it any different from how humans learn? We may not learn as fast as a computer, but we learn by looking at what others have done, and by trying to do the same thing ourselves, over and over, learning from our mistakes. This is essentially how large language models “learn” to do things. And AI is not going away. The genie IS out of the bottle. He’s not going back in, so the question isn’t whether we should use artificial intelligence, but how we should use it.
Let's begin with the simple scenario. Taking a piece of art you own and upscaling it. I have aphantasia, which simply means, I don't see things in my mind's eye. If you say, "think of an apple," I don't see an apple. There is no image formed in my mind. I think of an apple. I think of its color, its shape, but I don't see or even imagine these aspects visually, but as concepts. Conceptually, I know what it looks like, but I don't see an apple, so when I'm trying to visualize what a character or place looks like, it helps me to draw it. Then, and only then can I see it.
Most people can see images in their mind, and when I learned this, I was floored. I'd always thought the phrase, the "mind's eye" was allegorical. It never occurred to me people actually saw things in their mind's eye. It turns out they do, and that still seems strange to me. Regardless, in order to visualize a place or a person, I have to draw it.
Here is a drawing I made of the lighthouse at the Port of Jarick in The Rune that Binds. And next to it is the same image after I uploaded my drawing into AI and gave it a prompt. I think most people would be okay with the use of AI for something like this. You can clearly see how similar the two pictures are, and AI simply cleaned up my drawing.
In this instance, I used AI rather like a spell check for art. It fixed my lines, corrected my perspective, and gave me something more in line with what would have taken me a long time.
Now, you might say, well, that's all well and good for art, but what about writing?
—
Let’s begin by looking at the pros and cons of using AI for writing:
• It’s efficient and quick. The most obvious advantage of using AI for writing is the speed and efficiency with which it can generate content. AI can process vast amounts of data quickly and produce coherent and contextually relevant text, saving writers time and effort, and allowing them to be more productive.
• It is an antidote to writer’s block and can help generate ideas, brainstorming concepts, different narrative possibilities. It can provide prompts, suggestions, and creative insights, acting as a tool to spark inspiration and overcome writer’s block.
• AI has the ability to more easily maintain consistency in writing style, tone, and language throughout a particular piece of work. It does this while maintaining a high level of grammatical and spelling accuracy, as well as a coherent structure. As such, it can help writers maintain a consistent voice while adhering to specific guidelines or requirements.
• It excels in creating content that is accessible and inclusive. While some writers may balk at the current trend of DEI, others embrace it, and AI-powered writing tools can help writers meet their accessibility and inclusivity goals.
And because many AI tools allow for the user to rephrase and rewrite their suggestions to address gaps in their original query, it makes editing and fixing content fast and easy. AI can fine tune an article or piece of fiction with consistency, speed, and precision; and do it in a fraction of the time. AI can be customized to suit individual preferences and requirements, allowing writers to tailor the tool to their specific needs. Whether it’s adjusting the writing style, incorporating specific themes, or adapting to different genres, AI can provide personalized support to writers.
But it’s not all roses and rainbows. There are issues with AI writing tools that must be acknowledged. While AI may be able to write a 500-word essay, it is, at best, a rough draft. Perhaps more polished than some writers will produce on their first try, and certainly not as quickly as AI, but it is far from perfect. Here are some of its failings.
• One of the primary concerns regarding AI-generated content is what many consider its lack of authenticity and originality. AI can mimic human writing styles and patterns, but it struggles to produce genuinely unique and innovative ideas. Because of how it is trained, it can imitate, but it lacks originality, both of thought and expression.
• There exists a danger for writers who become overly dependent and reliant on AI. This can stifle creativity and even compromise a writer’s development. Because AI has a perfect understanding of grammar, punctuation, and spelling, it will do all of these things easily, but by relying on this perfection, a writer never develops these essential writing skills. Further, there are skills that it mimics, such as pacing, tone, setting, and so on that a writer must learn, but might not because they become overly dependent on AI tools. They lose their ability to think critically, or experiment with different writing techniques. In short, they never learn to hone their craft. Think of it like a cook who loves food but uses microwaveable dinners whenever they want to eat. This prepackaged, pre-seasoned food may fill the belly, but the aspiring chef never learns to do anything but push buttons.
• And because this is new technology, there are concerns about the ethical and legal issues of using AI in your writing. This is especially true when we think about copyright infringement and intellectual property rights. Is the AI truly writing, or taking snippets from all the things it’s scanned, piecing them together like a patchwork quilt? Who owns these snippets? How do we even determine ownership and attribution for AI-generated content? All this leads to a tangled gordian knot of potentially expensive legal disputes and complications regarding who owns what, and what is owed to whom.
• And because AI models are trained on existing data, much of which is in the public domain, and which was written in eras with different standards and biases, the content it produces may contain biases and stereotypes that are offensive to some. There is some concern that AI-generated content may inadvertently perpetuate or reinforce these biases.
• And lastly, as any writer can tell you, writing is a deeply personal experience. We weep, we laugh, and we mourn with our characters. Because it doesn’t involve the parts of the brain where imagination and creativity are centered, it is not as fulfilling or rewarding as writing from our own experience. There is a kind of Zen, a focus that comes when one opens a book to research a fact, or interviews an expert, which is not present when creating content with AI. I think it creates a barrier between writers and readers. When we write, we tap into and expose a part of ourselves to strangers. The use of AI in writing may diminish that human connection and the emotional resonance that comes from sharing authentic, heartfelt stories and experiences.
—
For example, 63% of the blue text was written by AI, based on this prompt: Write a 500-word essay on the pros and cons of using AI like Chat GPT to write stories or books.
ChatGPT produced 619 words, which I then went over and edited for clarity, adding about 300 words, mostly in the form of metaphors. While I edited and added some personal preferences for word choice, and provided the prompt, I didn't write the article. These aren't my ideas. I did no research. I just cleaned up the text ChatGPT generated. I made it flow a little more smoothly, and dropped in a colorful metaphor here and there, and that’s it. I felt more like an editor than a writer, and in fact, that's what I was.
More importantly, I didn’t enjoy writing it, because I didn't write it, I edited it (say that 67,420 times fast). I produced a 987-word article in maybe 30 minutes, with no research or real effort on my part. The bulk of which was created in less than a minute.
What I added made it better, but it still doesn’t feel like mine, like something I wrote, and I think that's because I didn't do the research, I didn't ponder over how to best express my views. I didn't even have to set my personal biases aside to create it.
Would I be comfortable submitting this for publication? Well, it is going up here on the CC blog, but since I created it specifically to include it in the blog as irony, yeah... but not if I were creating it for the sole purpose of passing it off as my own.
I can spot AI written articles like this from a mile away. They're flat, and uninteresting to read. Would I publish something like this? No. It’s not my article. It’s not my story. These are not my ideas. I didn’t think about any of this before writing it. I didn’t talk to a living person to gather their thoughts and feelings. I didn’t plant the seed of the idea in my brain and let it germinate. All I did was type a single sentence into a machine and got… something… back. Something that was admittedly legible, coherent, and grammatically sound, without a single misspelling or typo, which is better than I can do on my first try. It's serviceable, but it's also something that has no piece of me in it, even after my edits.
So... AI. It's here. It's not going away, and it WILL be abused. But it's also a tool, and like the original piece of art I drew of the lighthouse, coaxing it out of my brain's non-visual liabilities, on which I labored long and hard, erasing and redrawing, and erasing again and again until what I had on my tablet matched what I described in the book, it came from me. I never saw it in my mind's eye, because I'm blind in that aspect, but when I finally finished the drawing, I recognized it. And it came from me. It's something I made. All the AI did was clean it up. I think that if we put ourselves into our work before we put our work into AI, instead of the other way around, we can make great things, things with soul and heart, and humanity. Things readers can connect with.
My point? Don't be afraid of it. Don't hate it. Don't hate people who use it. But use it wisely, ethically, and put yourself into your work before you put your work into AI. By its very nature, what happens to AI and how it evolves is entirely up to us.