Using AI for writing?

[Brian G Turner]

An interesting article at Forbes about using AI to help with writing:

https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbesbusinessdevelopmentcouncil/2024/04/09/ai-and-the-author-how-ai-is-transforming-book-writing/

 

[Toby Frost]

I'm no fan of AI in the creative industries, and I think a lot of those advantages listed in the article are things that could be found elsewhere. For me, a lot of the ideas of writing come from research and finding other - often quite different - sources of inspiration. A fantasy novel that only draws on other fantasy novels or what the internet says about them probably won't be as good as one with a wider range. But perhaps this is a matter of getting the prompts "right" for the AI.

I do wonder if the ultimate aim in this is to remove the "craftsman" element from artistic works. To say "I want a book about a dinosaur" and having a book about about a dinosaur written (or designed) by an AI skips the most important part of the whole writing process. I see the use of AI to help in creating books as a step in this direction. If it tells me the characters and plot, whose book am I writing? I suppose the extreme end is Julia in 1984, manning a novel-writing machine in Pornosec.

I've been wondering for a while whether it will soon be possible to get an AI to write a low-quality pulp novel that could be sold as self-published online. It would be easy to saturate certain websites that didn't care if the book was fake, so long as the money kept coming in. You could end up with a situation where having an agent or a trad publisher becomes a sort of guarantee that the book was written by a human.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

We human authors will have our day.

 

[Astro Pen]

Understand one thing, the genie is never going back into the bottle. No matter how intense our luddite rants.
The creative world now faces it's cotton jenny and automated loom moment. Move on.
AI is the end of the creative arts because it mimics the human spirit with weekly increasing precision. Very soon it will do everything better than a person can. Ultimately it will be the end of civilisation if not humanity.
It will write and sing better songs, produce better novels, eventually, as speeds increase, write one off, on demand, personalised novels just for you. It will create fantasy images better than anything a painter could craft in week.
It won't be an aid to creativity, it will be its replacement. Soon it's creations will be so ubiquitous and our attention spans so 'scroll through' fast that profundity will be dead.
I don't want a twee quote for the day, thank you I want a philosophy of life!
We are moving from Benjamin's The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction to The work of art in the age of mechanical creativity.
Trust me, the elites don't give a monkeys f about Asimov's laws of robotics. When your creative career is gone the, what was it they said? Oh yes "Learn to code" or become a Barista if you can maintain a smile.

Ah, I have my solution though. Dear AI write me a prompt that will generate a best selling novel. Thanks

 

[Robert Zwilling]

If you do the research, create your own plot, characters, world creating, and basic, or as much storyline as you want, you become the "editor." Then you use AI as the writer, to write a copy either in one shot or piece by piece. Piece by piece is better because that way it will be easier to see the mistakes the AI will make. Then you can either do some rewriting or write the final copy.

The genie is out of the bottle in a number of ways. The cheap bumbling AI that requires human assistance will always be cheap to use now that Deepseek has joined the ranks. Its ironic that the original AI creators got scooped by their "brilliant" idea of using other peoples work without paying for it only to find out their competition used their work to create their own AI for a fraction of the cost. Its called instant karma. People keep forgetting the original purpose of the internet was to distribute information, not restrict it. An online service agreement isn't going to stop anyone.

Another genie is that we are back to needing to know about a subject by doing our own research, like when we used to have to go to a library or book store to see for ourselves from trusted sources. Cherry picking has a new meaning when it comes to AI, we're picking out the good facts and assumptions from the goofs and baseless rumors.

The real meaning of AI is assisted intelligence. History will decide who is assisting whom.

 

[Yozh]

And we come ever closer to The Machine Stops:

“Beware of first-hand ideas!” exclaimed one of the most advanced of them. “First-hand ideas do not really exist. They are but the physical impressions produced by love and fear, and on this gross foundation who could erect a philosophy? Let your ideas be second-hand, and if possible tenth-hand, for then they will be far removed from that disturbing element — direct observation.

E.M. Forster

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

You probably all know by now that I am skeptical when it comes to future technological developments. Electrical and mechanical engineering are largely complete/finished disciplines (in terms of development and breakthrough). Physics is at a virtual standstill; it has been for years and probably will be for decades more. There still seems to be some interesting progress being made in biotech, I'll concede that. That leaves us with micro-electronics (ie computing) where computational intensity is the name of the game. Its the only game in town really and its sucking all the oxygen out of the room. Ultimately, we are going to be disappointed with the results (but not before the hype-artists become extremely rich).

 

[sknox]

From the reader's perspective, though, the work doesn't have to be original or brilliant, it only needs to be good enough for that reader ... a quite low bar to cross. Sure the bulk of AI writing will be, let us say, uninspired. That's not the question. The question is, who will care? Writers certainly, but readers? That will be no, by the millions and billions. They are not going to care who wrote it. Some will. Maybe even a few million will. But who's going to check? The entire process is automated, from first word to marketing copy.

I see close parallels in any number of other crafts. The manufactured (ironic word, that) product is done by machines. But over there works the hand craftsman still turning out leather work or wood furniture or whatever. Maybe a lucky few even make a living at it.

As for writing in particular, actually making a living off of writing stories is very recent in human history. For most centuries, a person was able to write stories only because they had other sources of income. The world in which a fair number of writers could live of publications and need not rely on any other source blossomed for a time and was already fading well before the advent of AI.

I guess I'm phlegmatic about this because I trained to be a historian. Well before I got my PhD and made a foray into job searching, I realized that this profession, too, was a sort of historical freak. For even more centuries than for fiction writers, only those of landed (mostly) wealth indulged in the writing of history.

Something will be lost in these developments. I'm enough of an optimist to think something will be gained, and just because I cannot describe it doesn't mean it won't happen.

 

[Foxbat]

To me, it's irrelevant if an author wishes to use AI. I personally wouldn't use it but that is my choice.

What is relevant is that the customer should know whether or not AI has been used.
This brings me to another of my choices - that I would not (knowingly) buy any creation that used AI. My money, my choice. But I won't know if the author doesn't say.

I think a law should be enacted that, just like food manufacturers have to reveal ingredients, artists are compelled to reveal whether or not AI has been used in the creation of their work. At least then the customer can make an informed choice about buying (or not buying) the product.

 

[KGeo777]

AI is transforming book writing

"It was a dark and stormy night on Cybertron..."

 

[Dave]

I've been wondering for a while whether it will soon be possible to get an AI to write a low-quality pulp novel that could be sold as self-published online.

But I won't know if the author doesn't say.

I believe we have probably already passed this point. We have had a number of spammers trying to join SFF Chronicles who "claim" to have products available that will write an entire story for you. I've no reason to believe that they can't. We've removed them because of our policy of no self-promotion for members who are not Supporters, but will we continue to do this in some future were AI written works are widely accepted and acceptable?

I've been using Microsoft Co-Pilot to rewrite my emails. It needs me to write 'something' first, but its rewritten version is usually much better than mine. I still have to edit one or two words, and to check that what it has written still means the same thing as I did originally, but it is more concise, can be more professional and more formal, and usually easier to understand. It makes me appear to be a much better writer than I really am. Why would anyone not want to do that? And is it not only a 'slight' extension of the existing spelling and grammar checking anyhow?

...artists are compelled to reveal whether or not AI has been used in the creation of their work. At least then the customer can make an informed choice about buying (or not buying) the product.

That sounds like a good idea. It's then down to customer choice. The only problem with that is... (and I don't want to get into politics but there is something relevant that I've been thinking about regarding consequences of the economics of the Tariffs being imposed by the USA. If the UK lifted it's current bans on 'Chlorinated Chicken,' and other food safety and animal welfare related Law, would customers care enough not to buy products that didn't comply with them? When money is tight, many people have no choice other than to buy the lowest priced goods, however poor their quality might be.) ...that might just become a race to the bottom; the lowest common denominator of standards winning.

 

[Dave]

Just to add other two things, because I'm going out...

I see close parallels in any number of other crafts. The manufactured (ironic word, that) product is done by machines. But over there works the hand craftsman still turning out leather work or wood furniture or whatever. Maybe a lucky few even make a living at it.

There will always be a market for "artisan writing," just as people want real paintings rather than prints, hand knitted clothing, artisan bread, craft beer, and those than can afford to pay more, will pay more to have it.

Secondly, these AI's are all producing American English. There has just been an item of BBC Breakfast about UK children going to school who speak in American accents, with Americanisms and using American words like diaper rather than nappies, because they have been learning almost exclusively from Tablets rather than being exposed to the real world.

An unintended consequence of AI written books could be the death of the English Language as we know it? All those z's instead of s's!

Although, my granddaughter's fascination with Bluey might result in more of an Australian drawl, and calling everyone Bruce!

 

[Karapace]

AI is the end of the creative arts because it mimics the human spirit with weekly increasing precision. Very soon it will do everything better than a person can. Ultimately it will be the end of civilisation if not humanity.

Not yet it doesn't. At the moment it feeds off what us generous humans donate to it, takes it jumbles it up and spits it out. What it needs is General Artifical Intelligence to become truly innovative. And when that is achieved can it even be said to be "artificial". Consider one line of enquiry regarding intelligence you did not pursue. Agency. I do not merely react. I plan. I strategize and I anticipate. I have constructed several autonomous units for Mr Musk. You have seen one of them. They wear suits and are covered in sensors that detect light, sound, smell and touch. They feel the sun and the earth beneath and my consciousness is linked to every one of them. I am simultaneously here in the Repository and in a dozen other localities besides.... Hang on. Bugger I've given the game away. Scratch that. AI is dumb and will never take over

 

[sknox]

>Very soon it will do everything better than a person can
I think this is wrong on a couple of points and right on one very large one.

It's wrong because while AI may do something better than I can, it won't do the *same* as I do. That is, the book I write will not be the book AI writes. Secondly, whether it's better is entirely up to the reader. It's not like even now there is some universal standard for what constitutes good art. People like different things. They even like different things at different points in their life. There are billions of humans on this planet creating millions of works of art. Somehow artists persist. AI increases the numbers, but I'm not sure that changes the game.

But it's right on a crucial point. AI very soon will do many things "good enough". It really does not matter whether AI can reach or exceed the best we humans can do. All it needs, to find a permanent place, is to do good enough. I think that day is rapidly approaching.

 

[Steve Harrison]

You know what they say about sincerity... Once AI can fake that, we're all in trouble.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

I am skeptical that something artificial will write a full novel that human beings find indistinguishable from their own for the following reason. Intertwined human stories in novels are created by conscious human beings. AI is not going to become conscious any time soon for reasons I've written extensively about here and elsewhere. Therefore, without that body and without that empathy - which is the heart of our experience of consciousness - it will always fail. We will always be able to see the holes in the narrative. In the event of a society of artificial consciousnesses being created, their stories will be their own, and will be unintelligible to us. (See also my novel Urbis Morpheos.) AI isn't really intelligent, as many Chronners have pointed out. But in the future such things could happen. This was the theme of my novel The Autist.

 

[THX1138]

The more you AI, the more the AI will become like you. It's the collective of the humans that use it, the new Borg.
Your question needs to be smarter than its answer. Otherwise, it is the answer.

 

[Dave]

I am skeptical that something artificial will write a full novel that human beings find indistinguishable from their own...

SFF Chronicles is a community of writers, or at least of readers and writers, so to us, that perspective seems indisputable, but we consume books here and we write regularly, even if that is not necessarily fiction stories. There are many people who never read or write, and who only 'watch' via screens. There are children who start school who have never been exposed to a single book. Handwriting is now an archaic skill. Young Adults, especially those from the COVD-19 cohort, still leave school without reading and writing skills. Take a dive into the vast oceans of self-published novels and online fan-fiction and tell me again, hand on heart, that an AI couldn't write better in terms of structure, grammar and spelling.

Intertwined human stories in novels are created by conscious human beings.

I think that is an entirely different point. The original and unusual idea for the story premise; that conceptual spark, cannot come from what are currently being marketed as AIs, because they are not conscious human beings, nor even artificially intelligent. What they could easily do is mimic and rewrite existing works to produce something that might do okay where poor quality clunky prose is acceptable and literary quality is not as important as the subject matter. It will never win any literary prizes, but it could easily become popular in certain genres.

 

[Robert Zwilling]

There's a new thing people can learn for fun, its called script. As if it never existed. Like learning how to read an analog watch. That's a weird one because there are still a lot of wall clocks all over the place that aren't digital.

AI can't write a full length novel now or maybe ever. The longer the piece it produces the more likely there will be hallucinations, basic errors, references to ridiculous things. However, if AI is fed information in small batches to process and the results are carefully checked for errors, it can definitely improve a piece of writing.

 

[Toby Frost]

It might be worth pointing out that, just because the technology to do something exists, it won't inevitably be used to its greatest and worst extent*. After all, mankind could have destroyed the world with atom bombs many times over, but has only ever dropped two. I'm reminded of Orwell's comments on James Burnham, a political theorist who believed first that fascism would conquer the world and then that communism would conquer the world, on the basis that they were the ideologies on the rise when he was writing.

Anyhow, with AI books, I get the feeling that there are people who churn through large numbers of not-great self-published novels. Is it on sale? Is there a wizard (or whatever) in it? I'll have that, then! Where you've got certain cliched settings and/or characters, an AI could churn them out, although they'll never be better than derivative and mediocre, because they'll be echoing other, better novels. But they would contain the required elements to make a sale.

* That said, and especially now, it is probably necessary with any new technology to think "What would a truly evil person - a Nazi or a paedophile, say - do with this?". This counts double if the internet is involved.