A couple of studies regarding AI writing

[diremoon]

An issue I have with AI that hasn't been mentioned as far as I can see, is that the systems have all been trained using millions of copyrighted works without compensation or attribution to or of their creators.

By using them (in any context, not just creative writing) we are complicit in that intellectual property theft.

For sure this is a horse that has bolted in North America.

Yeah, this is something I can agree with. The environmental cost of AI data centres, along with scraping content with little or no attribution or compensation, is one of the sides of AI I’m much less comfortable with.

That said, I see those as problems with how the technology is currently being built and operated, rather than an inherent problem with using AI itself. In principle, things like energy use, licensing, attribution and compensation are all technically fixable — whether companies will actually choose to fix them is another matter.

What I’m more interested in here is the narrower question of the ethics of using AI in creative work itself: where the line sits between using it as a tool, collaborating with it, and simply having it generate the creative work for you.

 

[JBCrowson]

Yeah, this is something I can agree with. The environmental cost of AI data centres, along with scraping content with little or no attribution or compensation, is one of the sides of AI I’m much less comfortable with.

That said, I see those as problems with how the technology is currently being built and operated, rather than an inherent problem with using AI itself. In principle, things like energy use, licensing, attribution and compensation are all technically fixable — whether companies will actually choose to fix them is another matter.

What I’m more interested in here is the narrower question of the ethics of using AI in creative work itself: where the line sits between using it as a tool, collaborating with it, and simply having it generate the creative work for you.

For me, until the question of property theft is addressed, the value, quality or ethics of creating with it are hypothetical, as I ain't gonna touch it.

 

[diremoon]

For me, until the question of property theft is addressed, the value, quality or ethics of creating with it are hypothetical, as I ain't gonna touch it.

that is very fair and i respect you for it. for me personaly it is a more nessasery crutch as it helps keep me organised and focused, i dont need to worry about the details getting missed.

 

[JBCrowson]

that is very fair and i respect you for it. for me personaly it is a more nessasery crutch as it helps keep me organised and focused, i dont need to worry about the details getting missed.

Thanks, I think yours is a valid perspective too. As the father of a son with an intellectual disability, I have real struggles with the potential for my son to be more able and independent through AI, and these ethical issues that are currently inseparable from it.

 

[Sheilawisz]

Gasp! How this could be? A revelation! My heart skipped a beat! Is it you, THE ONE? The unique divine being who knows what is true and good in all human arts? The artkeeper! Gather round people, let's listen to the crumbs of wisdom he deigns to share with us, mere mortals!

Just a friendly reminder that snide, degrading and derisive comments go against the Forum rules of Mythic Scribes.

We appreciate a more positive and productive discussion.

Everyone, please let’s exercise caution and our best judgement when we discuss sensitive topics like the subject of this thread.

Thanks everyone!

 

[xena]

I find that to be the scary part, the fact that AI is becoming so advanced that humans can barely tell the difference between human written and AI generated content. It all comes down to the truthful nature of a person to be transparent and disclose whether they used an form of AI in their work or not.

 

[Prince of Spires]

I came across this it of AI research (though I haven't read the original paper...)

The TLDR is that if you look a layer deeper at AI answers, then you're always getting average answers. So stories written by AI tend to use the same structure and plot points etc.

Which, if you think about it makes sense. After all, AI is trained to give the most likely outcome, which means that you're likely to end up with an average story. And it's baked into the system.

It's both good and bad news in a way. If you write relatively formulaic stories, then AI can do those (though it still struggles in longer stories). So specific Romance niches where X, Y, and Z need to happen are relatively easy to do for AI. A multi-POV Epic Fantasy tale spanning a whole continent and three decades on the other hand will be much harder for AI to generate. That will not be something it can come up with.

 

[Alesia Matson]

This has been one of the least polarized and most reasonably conducted conversations on this topic that I've ever seen. Even when it got snippy, the participants themselves were able to walk their more heated statements back long before a mod had to get involved. That makes all of you good company, and what makes this site so unique, IME. Thanks to each and everyone who has participated so far, even if it was just by reading along.

To the issue at hand: My coauthor husband and I had some hard decisions to make in January of this year. We were in the middle of a third draft on our manuscript and choosing our proofreaders and editor when the loss of his last contract rendered our original plan-to-publish very, very inadvisable. So we looked at what we had in savings, and then we took a hard look at our budget for publication, and decided to back our own belief in our storytelling to get this book to market. It's been scary as all get-out, living and working without the parachute of outside income, but even 8 months into it, I still feel like we made the right decision.

Michael and I had to make some initially distasteful choices about the best ways to spend what money/resources we had. Our future was and is dependent on those choices, so we went with LLMs for technical things like editing, and humans to do the beta reading, proofreading, and evaluations. As we saw it (and still do), those latter tasks --- tell us what you thought, what did this scene or that make you feel? did the climax hit hard? are the plot mechanics believable? etc. --- needed responses from human minds and human hearts that no AI/LLM could manufacture from its databases.

The grammar and punctuation? Well, the LLM we used to line edit the final manuscript found hundreds of corrections in a 127,000 word document that had been previously edited by two human editors. Make of that what you will.

Given this experience, would I ever ask an LLM to write a book that I could publish under my name? H*ll to the f*ck no. There is no way that I would put the kind of time, effort, heartbreak, hoop-jumping, and frustration that 21st century marketing requires into anything I didn't create, didn't believe in, and to which I hadn't birthed. I'm just not built that way, and I have a hard time believing that any other creator is, either.

If that makes me less of a writer in anyone's eyes, I don't really care. Without the use of AI for technical issues in the creation of What God Has Ordained we would be flat broke right now, probably hungry, and possibly homeless. As it is, we're in pre-order status on AMZN, and have ARCs up on three platforms. Our bills are current, and Publication day is Oct 1st.

So, would I volunarily read any book that had been openly written by an LLM? Out of native curiosity, yes --- but I wouldn't spend money on it! I'd want to know for myself if they could write compelling characters, and an intriguing plot. Could its words make my spine curl in fear or my heart leap from joy? After being exposed to AI/LLMs for most of this year, I would wager against all of that. For the time being, anyway. The most entertaining thing I've seen them do is hallucinate, usually badly.

One thing I already know, and that every writer IMO should know, is that no AI/LLM can write your stories. Not yours. They just can't, it's impossible. Those come from your human heart, human/divine soul, and unique human experience. No AI/LLM can replicate that, no matter how large and power-hungry their data centers get. And just possibly, writing the story our hearts want to tell is the best thing we all can do to fight back against the possibility of AI/LLMs taking over humans' creative spaces.

I'm a dreamer, I admit it. But thanks for reading along.