AI has been an interesting development in the last couple of years, and if I am being honest, it’s a little scary how quickly it has reached its tendrils into our society. Let me make it clear, I am not against AI. I think it could be a good tool, and it has the potential to have a bigger impact or at least the makings of a bigger impact than the Internet.

I use AI all the time. I use it as a part of my job. I use it in conjunction with normal search functions, I use it to help me exercise my coding skills or lack thereof, I even use it for placeholder art. When I have to write something that requires regurgitation without much thought or routine writing practices, I will occasionally lean on AI.

However, I will never use AI in service of my creative writing. I have never run a single word of my creative writing through AI unless it was to generate an image, (even then, those images are not intended to be a part of any final product, just placeholders, experiments, flights of fancy, products of writer’s block and curiosity).

Maybe I don’t want to wade into these waters. NANOWRIMO did and it seems to have bitten them. I’ve read the statements, and I get their points, but I also have legitimate concerns about the future of creativity if AI plays a role in that creativity. It has to do with the vision of what you are trying to create. The goal. The core creative expression. If you are making a game and have no idea how to code, who cares if much of the code had an AI’s hand in it? The vision is yours. But in writing, where do you draw that line? How much work do you have to put in before the story is yours and not the AI’s?

Many writers would say any AI involvement in the written word is enough to take some of the authorship away. That’s not going to be enough to stop writers, perhaps even successful writers, from leaning on AI to increase output, maximize profits, and be damned with maintaining the integrity of human creativity.

Not to draw parallels to The Matrix, but at some point, if we hand too much over to AI, it will no longer be the civilization that we are serving. No longer our evolving culture, our creativity. It’s amazing how much we are already trying to hand over to the rudimentary AIs that we have right now. Just imagine how much worse it will be when the AIs are as good as us… or better…

For now, for just right now, can we just keep some of human creativity distinctly human? Just for a little while longer.

Quote of the Moment:

“Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.”

― Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

Current Reads:

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson