Is using AI is wrong?

[DireBadger]

I forgot another good reason for using AI: So you can learn what AI sounds like. Take this comment:

Sounds better than the generic intro we all get. Actually mentions characters and their correct mannerisms. Mentions sensory details. Almost sounds legit, right? Prelude to another scammer. Probably written with Claude, based on the use of "chef's kiss".

Inoculate yourself by learning what they sound like.

Ironically, you can even tell which AI it is. Deepseek. ChatGPT doesn't offer that much over-the-top praise and shallow detail

 

[MajorKerina]

The biggest problem with using AI in writing is it has no idea of how to present the text with focus without being specifically given all the things it needs to create a narrative. It will make pretty words in a style that it thinks you like but attached to nothing because it's just mimicking an impression of certain ideas. The best places to use AI are rather peculiar.

1) Sharp specific emotional scenes where you need a fresh perspective. It can cut through and deliver a focused moment.

2) Getting over how wordy some of your phrasings can be. It's really good at patterns so it will recognize once it has a chance to look at how it's supposed to read more fluidly.

3) Catching if you are playing an off note of style. I recently wrote a very provocative opening for a character and shared it with the AI and it immediately told me it did not read right for the character and then it informed me of how I could work with it to make it fit better and it even knew a lot of the subtext of the character. Even considering that it knew the trajectory for the character it told me my choice read as flat/inauthentic and gave me suggestions.

Minor editorial and support roles fit AI creative writing best.

 

[BearlyAlive]

Like any tool, it's only as good as the fool that uses it. AI in the hands of a person who knows what they're doing? A good crutch and helper. AI in the hands of a "write me the best harem isekai power fantasy you can so I can get rich quick doing nothing!"-kid? Well, they're writing scat, so maybe still good if they scoop it up and stir it a bit?

The more you use AI as a replacement instead of a smart tool (which is debatable, but it's the smartphone or smartwatch kind of smart, not intelligent smart), the dumber the final product will become.

 

[HaremTime]

I only use AI now to fix grammer and maybe add little as I miss but general are I against to ask AI to write adult chapter. The latest chapter I wrote I first wrote in Swedish and asked AI to translate it. But to use AI to write everything than is the work not personal so Nah I against to that but to use to fix grammer etc that’s good

 

[YagiToshinori]

Research. I have no idea what life was like in 18th-century Tuscany. Apparently, there was a rivalry with Venice. Who knew?

Also, physics....

Me: So the dude puts a keg of gunpowder next to the wall, lights it, and runs off. How much wall does he take out?
AI: A keg?!?! On a thin interior wall?!? All of it, dummy! Do you have any idea how many people that will kill?
Me: I dunno. Like, three?
AI: Oh my God, no.
Me: Four?

... I, um, need help with that stuff.

 

[melchi]

The problem with using Ai is the same problem with any tool. It'll produce words from a prompt but is that enough? Tools are good for some things and bad for others. Someone using Ai to produce words is a director, and directors require skills too. So editing, is extra important. It is the same as image generation, 90% of the stuff generated is poop, so the trap is that someone can produce 1000s of words in minutes. But the same problem is with people that can type 1000s words per minute, lots of words don't make for an enjoyable read. Like everything it is an iterative process.

Say a director is shooting a movie, and they only do one take, ever, for every scene. How will that movie go?

Also, word count budget. Typical stories have a beginning middle and end with a word count of ~100,000 words. A generative Ai can expand expand and expand. Cut to... and there is 100,000 words describing the interior of a house. Great, very detailed, but who is going to want to read that?

 

[RainyLiquid]

Yes.

 

[DireBadger]

AI is like a hammer.
That's all. It's like a hammer. You wouldn't use a hammer to trim your nails, flip pancakes, or eat a bowl of spaghetti, right?

Right?

 

[lambenttyto]

My take is that if you use AI to write anything, you're not making art, you're producing some kind of product. If you can sell your product or people like it, good for you, but I won't be reading it, lol. For me, author voice is the most important thing in fiction. I want to hear the writer behind the words, and if it's a machine, some mimicked voice, I'm not interested. But I suppose AI can be used for some things without hindering this artistry, but there's a line that shouldn't be crossed in my opinion. Even some incorrect grammar is okay in my book.

 

[Joyager2]

There have already been entire libraries written about how abominable AI is as a creative tool, how sickly it makes our art, and so on and so on. I could spend all day reiterating points already made a thousand times and made a thousand times more eloquently than I could ever hope to write, so I'll leave this article for you to read on your own. You should read through the whole thing, of course, but here're my favorite bits, especially in response to the idea that someone 'just trying to get their ideas out but struggling with how to word it' is somehow better than someone using AI to write their whole story.

Believing that inspiration outweighs everything else is, I suspect, a sign that someone is unfamiliar with the medium. [...] Many novelists have had the experience of being approached by someone convinced that they have a great idea for a novel, which they are willing to share in exchange for a fifty-fifty split of the proceeds. Such a person inadvertently reveals that they think formulating sentences is a nuisance rather than a fundamental part of of storytelling in prose. [...] The task that generative A.I. has been most successful at is lowering our expectations, both of the things we read and of ourselves when we write anything for others to read. It is a fundamentally dehumanizing technology because it treats us as less than what we are: creators and apprehenders of meaning. It reduces the amount if intention in the world.

 

[DireBadger]

I have read too many crappy writers that have gotten rich and famous to believe all the bullcrap about 'purity' or that bestseller of the week #223 is somehow better because the writer wrote it on slate using chalk.

Now, convince me that handcarts are better than semis. Or a shovel is more 'pure' than a backhoe. I bet you like carrying buckets of water for your bath and heating them up with a campfire, too.

AI is a tool. nothing more. People who use the tool correctly do a good job. All the arguments apply to people who use a shovel to start a fire, but AI is a difficult tool to actually master. You have to think of it more like a piano than a broom.

I don't use it much except for spellchecking, but that's because I haven't mastered the tool. 'generic' music is long gone. 'generic' art is too. The only reason people are complaining is that AI is replacing the 'generic' authors now, too. AI can produce generic, flavorless text just as easily as internet writers can, and that's driving the untalented and lazy crazy.

And BTW- most people ARE fundamentally less than they think of themselves. AI is not dehumanizing at all; it's simply reminding people, unpleasantly, of how useless and worthless they really are, an unforgivable sin. You want to be better? Then BE BETTER. You have the potential. Stop being lazy.

My take is that if you use AI to write anything, you're not making art, you're producing some kind of product. If you can sell your product or people like it, good for you, but I won't be reading it, lol. For me, author voice is the most important thing in fiction. I want to hear the writer behind the words, and if it's a machine, some mimicked voice, I'm not interested. But I suppose AI can be used for some things without hindering this artistry, but there's a line that shouldn't be crossed in my opinion. Even some incorrect grammar is okay in my book.

And the minute you start paying my rent, I will consider your opinion.

 

[lambenttyto]

Now, convince me that handcarts are better than semis. Or a shovel is more 'pure' than a backhoe. I bet you like carrying buckets of water for your bath and heating them up with a campfire, too.

I think you're right, however, there's something else to consider, and that's aesthetics. There's a lot of great AI art on the internet. Some of it is quite intriguing and I wouldn't be against printing and hanging some of this stuff. However, if I was going to spend money to support an artist, I wouldn't choose an AI prompter, not unless there was something truly unique about him that I admired. I would look for an artist who uses real paint and brush. Or even a digital painter who uses digital tools to create art from his own hand and imagination. Maybe I'm prejudiced, but when it comes to art, the discerning buyer/supporter/patron will choose what he chooses. AI is not my scene, though I will use it for cover design, ha!

 

[DireBadger]

I think you're right, however, there's something else to consider, and that's aesthetics. There's a lot of great AI art on the internet. Some of it is quite intriguing and I wouldn't be against printing and hanging some of this stuff. However, if I was going to spend money to support an artist, I wouldn't choose an AI prompter, not unless there was something truly unique about him that I admired. I would look for an artist who uses real paint and brush. Or even a digital painter who uses digital tools to create art from his own hand and imagination. Maybe I'm prejudiced, but when it comes to art, the discerning buyer/supporter/patron will choose what he chooses. AI is not my scene, though I will use it for cover design, ha!

I hear you, especially considering the alternatives.

 

[ElijahRyne]

I read so many posts, some support it and some against it
For suppose if someone has story, idea, dialogues but he use AI for discriptions, actions, brain stroming ideas( like taking 1 from 100 ideas), proof reading, all related to technical stuff, is it wrong?
I use for proof reading i mean I am indian if I write, it not come in native flow, it comes in Indian English, I think by chatting with ai we get more ideas some times other than we foucusing, I don't use for story and dialogues because 99% times it gives without emotions,

I assume a plot and while writing i go into chracter and mainly reader pov, what will there think and automatically I get all loop holes in that, are you also same? Well it's unrelated to topic

Coming to the topic, when some technology comes some against it but after so many years they will adopt to it, right? Like after 10 or 20 years I think all will use it because it is there as resource

I am pretty confused of so many posts and come to conclusion, it depends on how you use, but that's exactly I am blocked
I still think is there some one just give promt to write this plot to Ai, take the answer and paste in website? They will read, right? They will modify it, right? Without modify and working hours on it, is someone just copy and paste it in website? If they do, I agree to they can't use ai, but if not I think it is good to take help, ofcourse from friends, relatives opinion too, ultimately the story have to good for reading, right?

Using it to kill time is fine, especially if you are not paying for it. It can be useful as a grammar aid, so long as it points out mistakes and you don’t use it to reword what you have written. It can help with brainstorming to an extent, but having another person might be more helpful. Using it to write will only, at most, give you a barely coherent extremely average story, not including ethical issues.

 

[Joyager2]

I have read too many crappy writers that have gotten rich and famous to believe all the bullcrap about 'purity' or that bestseller of the week #223 is somehow better because the writer wrote it on slate using chalk.

Now, convince me that handcarts are better than semis. Or a shovel is more 'pure' than a backhoe. I bet you like carrying buckets of water for your bath and heating them up with a campfire, too.

AI is a tool. nothing more. People who use the tool correctly do a good job. All the arguments apply to people who use a shovel to start a fire, but AI is a difficult tool to actually master. You have to think of it more like a piano than a broom.

I don't use it much except for spellchecking, but that's because I haven't mastered the tool. 'generic' music is long gone. 'generic' art is too. The only reason people are complaining is that AI is replacing the 'generic' authors now, too. AI can produce generic, flavorless text just as easily as internet writers can, and that's driving the untalented and lazy crazy.

And BTW- most people ARE fundamentally less than they think of themselves. AI is not dehumanizing at all; it's simply reminding people, unpleasantly, of how useless and worthless they really are, an unforgivable sin. You want to be better? Then BE BETTER. You have the potential. Stop being lazy.

And the minute you start paying my rent, I will consider your opinion.

I think you’ve really missed some fundamental points here. It’s not about ‘purity’ or ‘good books’ vs ‘bad books’ or how well a book sells or how much money a book earns—whatever those things mean to you—it’s about meaning and how intentionality creates meaning. When it comes to art, the small things, the tiny, almost imperceptible individual decisions we make are what helps create that meaning. We are, after all, deciding how best we want to convey the messages and meanings in our heads to others. Only we know how best to share the ideas in our minds.

To address your examples, no, a handcart is not better than a semi in an industrial sense. One unquestionably performs their common purpose better than the other. But that purpose is industrial. If it were artistic, if its intent was to carry a message or express meaning in some way, then the tool the artist would choose to use is part of the intentionality required to convey that message. In that context, a semi might be far superior to a handcart—or vice-versa. It depends, again, on the meaning the artist seeks to create.

As writers, we seek to create meaning using the tool we have at hand: language. In that respect, we are limited. Language is so impossibly large that it is incapable of ever being fully understood by any specific person, but we limit ourselves to it alone. No pictures or sounds or movements or anything other than words on the page (though there’s plenty of argument that the page itself is part of the medium). Ultimately, the way in which we create meaning comes down to our choices about every aspect of our language: syntax, diction, punctuation, all of it. Everything we put on the page is ours, hand-crafted to be exactly how we want it to be so that the meaning we seeking to make is made as well as it can be.

The article (and me, for what it’s worth) bemoans the loss of that intentionality. Specifically, that there are very many people who do not understand how intentional writing is, how important the minutiae is to making meaning, and they offload much of it to LLMs. In particular, LLMs, as language generators that do not retain facts or concepts, that are not intelligent, that serve simply to string together that which writers must use intentionally to create their meaning without thought or intelligence, can serve only one purpose to us: providing us with pre-decided language, making those little decisions for us. Certainly, we can choose which of these decisions to take and which to reject, but ultimately, we have not made those initial decisions.

This does not make a written work ‘impure’ or diminish its worth (again, whatever those things mean to you), it only makes it less intentional. It muddles the meaning. It prevents us from communicating with one another as best we can (even if it doesn’t appear that way) or striving to learn how to do so on our own. It removes intentionality from our creations so that we no longer think of the decisions it makes for us or how they contribute to the meaning we seek to express. In this way, it is dehumanizing. In this way, it makes us less than what we are. In this way, I do think using AI in the writing process is bad. You can, and clearly have, attach the desire to offload these tiny decisions to laziness and stupidity, to ‘sin’ (whatever that means to you), but personally, I think there’s much more to it than that.

 

[DireBadger]

Too much metaphysics for me. Value is in the end product, not the journey taken to produce it. I am not a communist, and do not consider a hand-knit sweater somehow intrinsically more valuable than a machine-made sweater if they are identical. Marxist labor value is a failed concept, repeatedly and horrifically failed.

And that is as true for writing as for any other form of production. If a person can create a good book, I honestly don't care about the how or why of producing it.

And alternatively, subscribe to Kindle Unlimited for a few months. Or even check out the unrated 'daily' files on scribblehub or royaltoad. I have been kicking around those places for around 15 years, and I will tell you, based on lots of experience, 90% of the content is dramatically WORSE than what an AI with a two-sentence 'construction guide' can produce.

In short, I don't see AI replacing good writing; I see it replacing BAD writing, like NK Jemisin's crap, which would have been MUCH better written by AI.

The metaphysical 'meaning' behind a book is utterly and completely irrelevant. It's like those stupid paintings of a box and a stick... they mean nothing, and the only value they ever had was when the CIA used them as a way to transport and launder money. If you cannot write, draw, or create meaning that can be understood by the audience, the failure is YOURS, not the fault of the invisible audience to 'be sensitive enough'.

Most importantly, if someone can learn to use AI as an 'art brush' good enough to create something worthwhile, then our criticism is irrelevant... they have simply created digital art using tools we are either not smart enough pr talented enough, or we have too much ego, to understand. I doubt it is possible yet, but with every new tool, a new type of artist rises to use it to create masterpieces.

 

[Max02]

Depends FOR WHAT PURPOSE you use it.

Grammar check?
Research?
To create a basic template for you to work with later?

None of such is wrong. Wrong would be for you to simply ask AI to write a whole story for you in ten minutes and then pretend it was your hard work.

It's clear that, the more AI progresses, the more difficult it will be to tell the difference between AI made and human made material. I've read some things made by AI which are so eloquently impeccable as to be able to deceive most anyone.

If you, for instance, feels frustrated at most of what you read in a given genre (say, sci-fi) and give AI the basic instructions on WHAT you would like to see in a sci-fi story, and AI manages to give you that, what's wrong with that? You're not cheating as long as you're just enjoying the book and not pretending you wrote it in the last three months or so, when it took less than ten minutes to be ready.

 

[Shorgoth]

My take is that if you use AI to write anything, you're not making art, you're producing some kind of product. If you can sell your product or people like it, good for you, but I won't be reading it, lol. For me, author voice is the most important thing in fiction. I want to hear the writer behind the words, and if it's a machine, some mimicked voice, I'm not interested. But I suppose AI can be used for some things without hindering this artistry, but there's a line that shouldn't be crossed in my opinion. Even some incorrect grammar is okay in my book.

Oh boy, clearly you just feel like denigrating others because you feel uncomfortable about the tool and classify it as cheating.

For your information, I don't use AI to write my novel, but I use it for images and music. It takes hours for each piece because I work with strong intent, and it's based on my novel entirely. AI is a medium, not the author. I think your take is highly self-serving and insulting. I've worked on my world and novel for 17 years... I doubt you can say as much. It's ALWAYS relative to the effort put in it, not the medium. The same kind of dismissive crap was said about Photoshop back in the day; it aged quite poorly. Art is expressing emotions through a medium. Something you can do using AI because it's a medium as much as a pencil, using, let's say, stencils to make better circles. Yes, you can make a lot of meaningless crap, but it doesn't dismiss the work of those who work hard to execute their own vision.

 

[Prince_Azmiran_Myrian]

As time goes on, it will be harder to tell the difference between AI and human. And then the end will come as foretold to us.

 

[Worthy39]

As time goes on, it will be harder to tell the difference between AI and human. And then the end will come as foretold to us.

That's when we start hurrying the heck up to become cyborgs so we can fight them on even ground.