Cheating Yourself

 Lavender and one of my sculptures

 For Saturday's blog, I had in mind writing about my second paranormal, fantasy romance. Something else came up though that I felt demanded more attention. 

For some time there has been concern over what AI will mean for our culture. I think Stephen Hawking, before he died, expressed concern over it being destructive for mankind. I had my doubts as a machine can be destroyed if that is so desired. What about when it's not? What about when some feel they can profit from Artificial Intelligence? Teachers right now have to express concern whether their students wrote the essays they submitted. Writers worry about books created by ChatGPT, relatively new to the game, flooding the market and kicking human authors to the curb.

Well, the genii is out of the bottle and AI is here whether some like it or not. I have heard some authors say it does a better job writing their blurbs than they can do-- and faster. 

For a long time, people have used computers to check spelling or find out if a word was used too many times. That's not the same as a whole book written by a computer and submitted under someone's name to earn money or maybe even fame. What do we do about that?

One thing to realize, if someone desires to be a creative person, I believe that using AI for an essay or a book is cheating themselves of the genuine creative experience. For students, learning to research and then writng an essay expands their abilities. To use AI instead is cheating themselves as well as the system.

As a writer myself, I don't worry about it as I think that human emotions and plots with the kinds of twists that don't come from a formula, will always satisfy more than something generated out of a system that only knows rules. 

At my age, I don't depend on my writing to provide a family's income. Lucky me. I can write for joy, which I do, and recognize that formula writing, which is what AI can do, won't do what I do. I also recognize that many readers are happy with formula writing. It's dependable at least. That's been true for a long time, since in the 1800s, readers could grab those cheap dime novels and get excitement even if it's repetitive.

Part of what decided me to write a blog about AI, where I provide no answers, is believing when we know what something is, what feeds our souls or just passes time, that will help us find meaningful material to read. Maybe it won't be my books, lol but there are plenty of good authors out there, who are writing from their souls. Just keep in mind what passes time doesn't always benefit the writer or the reader.

I decided with a kind of dark topic here, I'd have some of our wonderful flower pictures from spring, something that does feed my soul. 

Check out this link for more thinking on AI and where it's taking us.

Writer's Digest what is yet to come with AI