With the emergence of AI (Artificial Intelligence), a wave of revulsion spread among some writers, including authors and screenwriters who predicted it would replace and put them out of work, rob them of their income, their copyrights, steal and reproduce their work and cheapen the craft of writing.
Much of this I believe is unfounded.
If you’re a lousy writer, a hack…you might be threatened by AI, that it will flood markets with writing and phase you out of work.
If you’re a good writer you’re likely not threatened at all by AI.
For all its supposed new dominance, AI is only a human-generated technology. It has no feelings, no judgement; no unique or personal voice. Like a bad writer it is flat, dull, recycled, predictably sterile work, cranked out by a machine that uses numbers (codes) to present dry concepts.
It is incapable of portraying the heartbreak of for example a failed marriage.
AI can perhaps phase out human writers who have no skills at the craft, and who only pursue writing for a paycheck. I will leave it to you to determine if that is a loss for the world.
To me it’s simple. I’m a better writer than AI is, and most people still value work performed by a human rather than a machine. Instead of ending my career, I use AI for my own benefit. I consider it just another tool to make my work easier, like spellcheck.
In the writing of my recently completed creature-horror novel “The Parasitoid Horror” about a DNA-mutated giant wasp in Peru, I used AI many times to get answers about the flora and fauna of Peru, its landscape, vegetation and wildlife. It was much easier to get quick answers rather than having to do separate individual searches on the web.
But AI is not infallible and its answers should be checked.
On simple questions the accuracy rate of AI is about 91 percent, less on more complicated questions.
When asked for a Peruvian fish that can breathe air out of water, AI provided the answer, the paiche fish, which can reach up to 10 feet in length and at 500 pounds is one of the largest freshwater fish in the world.
This kind of information available at my fingertips is a great benefit to me. I can spend more time focusing on the intimate feelings of the characters in my books—-the very thing that AI cannot do—-and less time on searching for the trivial facts necessary for deepening and coloring a novel.
To me AI is a partner, not a bully.
It’s a helpful research tool but I’m also not against it if it promotes reading. Too many people, especially youngsters, do not do enough reading, instead spending their time on mindless video games and social media contacts. Texting is not reading, or learning from it.
People considering new technology to be a threat have parallels that go back far into history. The invention of movable type and the printing press in the 15th century was seen by religious authorities in the church in Europe as removing their monopoly on interpreting the Bible. Common people could read it and make their own interpretations. Kings and monarchs, some of them tyrants, viewed it as the spreading of subversive ideas to the ignorant masses and promoting political dissent.
Manuscript scribes who laboriously copied by hand literary works and artists who adorned the pages with hand-inked and painted illustrations thought they would be put out of work. No doubt some of them were, but they probably found other ways to use their talent.
I suppose it all boils down to what you intend to do with any new technology.
AI won’t end human writing, and it won’t end the public’s respect for the traditional author. A similar example would be, the invention of the power loom did not end hand-woven and decorated clothing garments.
Human artistry will always be respected.
John Sammon is a freelance writer and the author of 41 books, many of which can be found here on Amazon. He is a resident of El Dorado Hills. His commentary is the first in a series on the trip of self publishing.
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