When OpenAI introduced ChatGPT to the world in November 2022, it felt like a novelty. It’s not like we were going to be swept into the worlds of Blade Runner or The Matrix or or even Wall*E where artificial intelligence changed mankind in the very worst ways. (From experience, I can say that Robert Patrick is a kindhearted soul, not at all like the villainous T-1000 he plays in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.)

So much has happened in a matter of months. Chat GPT-generated books flooded Amazon, an AI-generated image won a prestigious photography contest, and a Marvel show, Secret Invasion, used AI to create the opening credits. With AI leaning so much into the creative arts, writers are getting anxious and it’s easy to understand why.

What AI Can Do

AI is not new. Writers have been using it for decades without thinking about it. Common tools we often turn to, from autocorrect (no, I didn’t mean “duck”) to spell check (THAT’S how you spell soiree?), actually fall into the realm of artificial intelligence. We don’t tend to worry about them so much because they are not the creative part of writing we take so much pride in.

It’s the heart and soul of the writing that has some writers up in arms. Rightfully so, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) worries that studios will turn to AI more and more, hiring fewer writers, and making it harder, if not impossible, to make a living wage in the writers’ room.

Artificial intelligence does not exist in a vacuum. So much depends on the source material and the prompts fed to it. That does not mean that people won’t take advantage of AI to churn out books and scripts at breakneck speeds. By February 2023, more than 200 e-books had ChatbotGPT listed as a co-author. Who knows how many other authors or publishers used it as a tool but didn’t disclose the fact? A Washington Post article even highlighted a Mumbai-based company that has been publishing books on specialized topics that are eerily close in title and content to books published by experts in the field. Are we looking at a type of plagiarism here? Other online outlets, like San Francisco’s Ingenio, have embraced AI outright, proud to say, “We published a celebrity profile a month. Now we can do 10,000 a month.”

What AI Cannot Do

It is true that artificial intelligence can do the work faster. Humans cannot compete with machines on that front. The brain has only so many synapses and those synapses cannot fire full-time, not in all-out creative mode at least. We need to eat and sleep and do all the things we do to live a full and meaningful life.

In the meantime, AI will crank out content at high volumes. It could crowd the market in a way that makes it harder for someone to discover your work. It could even make it harder to get a traditional publishing contract. Your work really needs to stand out. So keep working on your craft.

The work of a large language model won’t always be accurate (I would think that’s important if you are dealing with anything non-fiction!). It will require fact checks and human editing. The bigger concern is really in regards to works of fiction. Some authors take years to develop their novels. The edits, the rewrites, it all takes skill and time. It is about the storytelling, the lived experiences, the empathy, things that a non-sentient machine cannot deliver, not really. Sure, AI can make it sound like they are engaging with you on a human level. Who can forget how Microsoft’s Bing chatbot Sydney flirted with New York Times tech columnist Kevin Roose and told him to leave his wife. Yikes! Still, the debate is out if these large language models will ever truly be sentient.

What You Can Do

Whether you like it or not, artificial intelligence is likely here to stay. No one, not even Neo, can dodge that bullet. You will have to decide if you will use it or not and, if so, how much and to what extent.

I can assure you my use of autocorrect isn’t going away any time soon. Still, personally, I have moral issues with using AI to do the creative leg work for me. If I toss a bunch of prompts at a chatbot, is it really my story? Would I be proud of a story where my only real contribution was a good hook?

The question you have to ask yourself is why do you write? If it’s all about quantity and generating as much income as possible, you may steer that way. For me, the joy is in the process. I learn more about myself with each written word; I grow; I become a better person. Writing is a release and a way of life. My opinion on that may change in the future but for now, all my content will be from the mind of this quirky human.

Bensinger, G. (2023). Focus: ChatGPT launches boom in AI-written e-books on Amazon. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/technology/chatgpt-launches-boom-ai-written-e-books-amazon-2023-02-21/

Nik Popli. (2022). He Used AI to Publish a Children’s Book in a Weekend. Artists Are Not Happy About It. Time. https://time.com/6240569/ai-childrens-book-alice-and-sparkle-artists-unhappy/

Oremus, W. (2023). He wrote a book on a rare subject. Then a ChatGPT replica appeared on Amazon. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/05/05/ai-spam-websites-books-chatgpt/

Parshall, A. (2023). How This AI Image Won a Major Photography Competition. Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-my-ai-image-won-a-major-photography-competition/

Roose, K. (2023). A Conversation With Bing’s Chatbot Left Me Deeply Unsettled. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/16/technology/bing-chatbot-microsoft-chatgpt.html

Small, J. (2023). Bing’s New Chatbot Has Threatened, Gaslit, and Flirted with Users: “It Tried to Convice Me I Should Leave My Wife.” Entrepreneur. https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/bings-new-chatbot-has-threatened-and-flirted-with-users/445922

Watercutter, A. (2023). Marvel’s “Secret Invasion” AI Scandal Is Strangely Hopeful. WIRED. https://www.wired.com/story/marvel-secret-invasion-artificial-intelligence/

WGA Strike 2023. (2023). WGA. https://www.wgacontract2023.org/