Writers on Writing

Writing About AI

NOT letting AI write for me

Let me make this clear. I don’t use AI to write any of my posts or novels or short stories or any writing that I publish. Nor do I use it for plotting or strategizing plots; my story-telling is my own.

graphic made with photo of my daughter dancing and a photo by NASA, ESA, M. Robberto ( Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team

I don’t use AI at all in putting together graphics for this newsletter, (Photoshop is my go-to for that), and I credit any photos I use. All other art that I didn’t produce myself, such as cover art, comes from professional artists who don’t use AI either.

When do I turn to AI?

For research — it’s faster than the search engine, hours of study, and talking to people in the know, so I start with AI and then verify with reputable sources.

For coding help — mostly smoothing out or improving website code I’ve already written. And I am considering using it to improve some of my bookkeeping and business tracking Excel files.

For reworking market copy — new ways to talk about books in ads, (mine or some I’ve published), changing up blurbs to make them fresh, that sort of thing. This is a preliminary approach, to give me something different to work with. I don’t cut and paste from the AI suggestions. And in fact, sometimes I think, “Okay, this shows me what not to do.”

For contracts — ironing out, improving, and updating author contracts I write as a publisher. As new concerns arise in the publishing realm, I want to make sure my authors are covered and cared for and not just look out for my own interests as a publisher. (Note — I am not skipping human legal advice, just using AI to clarify what needs to be covered.)

For market analysis — This is back to research and honestly, I’ve found apps such as Publisher Rocket to be more useful. But it may be worthwhile checking with AI about other books in the genres I write/publish to see if anything is trending I might want to read or position as a comparable choice in marketing.

Other research and learning — unrelated to writing and publishing.

Artificial Intelligence is a tool that should never be used to plagiarize. More than that, people should be able to tell whether they are consuming AI content or not. I wish there was a way to confirm that!

For me — I am telling you straight. I have no intention of adulterating my legitimate, living, original, human-produced content.

Editing? I only use living, human editors because I don’t want AI combing through and learning from my creative writing. AI’s opinions on my content would probably be based on an averaging of the bulk of writing out there — why would I want that?

Would dancing be the same if we were watching sophisticated robots? Even if they could simulate human dancers and impress some of us, it would never express anything. No emotion, no wonder, no pathos. Nothing to tug on those deeper, wordless levels within us that find relief in art and the creativity of others.

We may be entertained for a short time, but we would soon grow weary of the empty productions manufactured by coding and imitation. Like artificial flavors and aromas that tempt and disappoint, and for some of us are even detrimental.

Why would I offer you something I would never want to consume myself?

I won’t.

*Note — I like using the m-dash at times and I am not going to let AI rob me of that.

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