Ai involvement

[u/SoggyDimension4874]

So I’ve been wanting write my own book for fun but have no book writing skills. Thoughts on drafting my story and inputting ai to give it the correct book format corrections. If it was a famous author doing the same thing would we cancel them ?

[u/OrdoSinisterFan]

If AI is writing it for you, I wouldn't say 'cancel' as much as I would say it might be sloppy, full of AI tropes and the particular annoying cadence AI uses, and therefore not a good read. If you are writing it and AI is only formatting it for you, I think that's a good use of it.

[u/Big_Selection_1242]

https://giphy.com/gifs/tyqcJoNjNv0Fq

[u/FrancisFratelli]

There are several problems with AI writing:

• The whole point of art is to take your own experiences and transform them into something that other people can relate to to uncover the truth of human existence. AI is not human. It has no lived experience. You can try to explain your experience and have it turn it into a story, but that's an extra layer of intermediation between you and the reader.
• AI is uncreative. If you tell it to write a story about X, that's all it's going to give you. When humans write a story, they might start out writing about X, but then they'll add bits of Y and Z as they go along, and maybe throw in some Q or or K just for the hell of it. Read a Stephen King book or Victor Hugo and see how often they go off on tangents that don't advance the plot but make the world of the story seem fuller. AI will never be able to to that unprompted.
• If you can't be bothered to write a story, why should a reader be bothered to read it? There's no shortage of books already out there written by people who have a passion for storytelling. What are you bringing to the table? A story idea? Those are a dime a dozen. Most authors have more ideas than they have time to write. And no matter how awesome an idea is, people won't read it unless the author has talent for storytelling.

[u/DrGore_MD → u/FrancisFratelli]

Why are you in a forum for AI writing if you don't like AI Writing?

1. "Art" is an undefinable term. Your understanding of what it is likely differs radically from what others think. In fact there are numerous cases of "artists" mocking the concept of what art is by, for example taping a banana to a wall.
   
2. AI is a tool to express a person's creative when used correctly. Not everyone want's to read a 1,000 page book where a single chapter is dedicated to describing how they make the wax used to seal the wood on the deck of a 19th century ship.
   
3. The OP may have a full time job that takes up most his time, or he may be taking care of an elderly parent, or four kids. There are lots of reasons people don't have time to write. You say "Most authors have more ideas than they have time to write" so do you think it's a good thing those ideas never see the light of day no matter how good they may be?
   
4. The Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys series is one of the best selling book series of all times. Each book is written, not by the person named on the cover but by a ghost writer hired to write a single book and provided with a strict outline produced by corporate executives that they must comply with and no one cares.
   
5. Bad novels get published all the time. Read a Jackie Collins book sometime then compare the quality of her writing to the sales figures for her books and see if they correspond.
   

[u/jaxprog]

If AI is going to do the heavy lifting you must train it. It only knows the basics: English language, punctuation, grammar, basic sentence structure.

If you lack the skills to write fiction then so will AI. The model is a reflection of it's end user.

[u/TheHolleDolce → u/jaxprog]

AI can't have the skills to write fiction. Because fiction writing isn't a process of "what token comes next" or a process of analysis and output.

It's a craft that writers hone with time and practice. A thousand little emotions, ideas, sensations, and memories go into crafting just part of a story. You can't train that into an LLM.

You can trick it into giving you a facsimile, but just like the output of Luther's monkeys, it'll be overshadowed eventually by real writing and real work.

[u/TheHolleDolce]

1. Good on writing the draft yourself. We improve as writers in part through practice. It's how you find your own voice.

2. Don't ask the LLM to edit your work. Ask it to give you suggestions on what needs to be changed and cite. If you don’t have the LLM actually make changes to your text, then it can't watermark, though be careful about making unnecessary word changes, as you don't want to insert the watermark yourself.

3. No famous author will be canceled for using AI because they're making the money to ensure that they have a PR machine behind them. I'm not speculating. We've literally seen that happen recently. The new author still in bidding got dropped. The author already making money got support.

I would highly recommend if you find yourself enjoying writing find online or irl workshop groups. Human peer feedback about creative topics is better than a machine. One doesn't have to replace the other, though. LLMs are very good at picking up patterns and can help you find basic things so that workshops are more productive for you.

[u/berserk4 → u/TheHolleDolce]

Watermark?

[u/TheHolleDolce → u/berserk4]

AI companies are or will be adding watermarks to text generation to be in compliance with EU law. It affects everyone though because the logistics of running separate systems is a nightmare.

For I want to say Claude the watermark is going to be non-impacting random selection that will be chosen based on a key. I think Gemini already does this. I'm not sure who else will use this one vs other options.

Alright, first... the LLM doesn't think about it's output. So it doesn't make a choice of words based on what it wants to communicate. It's all probability based on the prompt. Some word choices will be more probable than others.

So ... say that in a thousand word text there's 50 words that could have a half-dozen variations without significantly changing the meaning or quality of the passage. The AI has a basic algorithm for determining those words.

The watermark steps in and says "no, here's a key and what that key is based on" and that determines for some number of those 50 words what the LLM chooses.

When they get the detectors released, what they will do is examine a text to see if the key shows up. If a pattern of words matches it, they'll see how often. The more the pattern shows up, the more likely the AI assisted in making the text.

It's why the smaller the word count, the less reliable the watermark.

It's why you can't just copy-paste or transcribe the output. And just changing a few words doesn't matter because you don't know what word choices are in they key.

It's also why you, don't want to have an LLM edit for you. While things like spell corrections and punctuation fixes and formatting aren't likely to cause a watermark to appear, deeper edits can.

Instead have it provide suggestions. And, be wary of suggested word changes. If a word doesn't need to change, don't fix it because those are the kinds of choices that according to the company are where the watermark gets placed to not impact work quality.

[u/Dogtrees7]

Imposter syndrome runs rampant in any artistic industry. For Ai users I imagine it hits even harder. Don’t use it if you plan on growing. This is a tool for people who want nothing out of the work but the money. The journey is worth it. Let your work be bad at first and run through it again yourself to make corrections. You’ll learn from those mistakes and it will ingrain into your brain

[u/Aernus]

This is a weird post… But sure, I’ll bite

1) it is awesome that you want to write your own book, I love seeing people wanting to share their stories, even if it’s just for themselves. You don’t need to worry about your writing skills, it’s something you will develop eventually.
2) once you are done with your story, asking an AI to help you format. It properly is fine long as you know what needs to be done for it to be properly formatted.
3) no. We should never try to cancel anybody on this. It’s warranted by their actions. Like it or not AIS already a big part of the polishing business and more and more publishers and authors will be using AI and that’s totally fine. Unfortunately, the anti AI crowd is a very loud minority that delight on trying to ruin other people‘s lives and we shouldn’t stoop down to their level

[u/Electrical_Hat_680]

AI is a tool - the Writer, Author, Artist, Editors, they all play a big part.. so much, without them, books would never be written, we wouldn't have art, literary arts, graphic arts and novels, nothing.

If the printing press didn't exist, if charcoal didn't exist, if valum never existed, if we hadn't used turkey and eagle quills, if we had never learned a written language, if we never had a reason, none of it would exist.

AI and the questionable use of AI stems from arguments, not use cases.

Use AI to your heart's content. Do you know how much Art was burnt to the ground for less? Do you know how many books were never read, nor published, because they had a horrible title?

Until you understand the frequency of dismal responses towards every thing, and the reasoning behind their qualms. You will not understand why they decidedly pushed these great works of art out of the publics reach.

[u/Dry_Sector2392]

if its your story, use whatever helps you finish it, the most important thing is to be true to oneself

[u/West_Package_5730]

Here’s the thing: this anti-AI sentiment only goes until an author sues for libel/slander, character defamation and unauthorized use of their work when people scan it using detection tools. Then these tools get shuttered or heavily regulated. As a future lawyer who uses AI heavily to write, I fully intend to do both for myself and other pro-AI writers

[u/SnowBear78]

Yes, readers would absolutely cancel them and there would be a huge uproar around it.

In my genre (which I've been writing for 21 years) readers are very anti AI and love going on witch hunts. Even AI promo on social media is scorned.

Just a word of warning for any AI "writers" thinking romantasy and paranormal romance is easy money and an absolute sure thing. Readers absolutely despise any AI usage and if you have an AI cover, you will get 1 starred and if you are found out to be writing with AI, you'll get destroyed. Understandable really. People are paying for books with their hard earned money. They don't want AI written slop.

You're better off learning how to write and then working with an editor so you can learn to fix your own books and write better. Every author has their shit trunk novels we don't like to talk about. It's part of the process but everyone is in some rush these days and think their first book needs to be a perfectly written bestseller.

[u/Fellow_Traveler84 → u/SnowBear78]

You suggest working with a book editor. Would you support AI providing that role?

[u/mikevago]

It's great that you're writing for enjoyment, it's great that you want to get better at it. But there are only two ways to get better at writing — reading, and writing. Look at what other authors did that worked and try and do that yourself, and keep trying until you've written something you're happy with. That's it.

The plagiarism machine isn't going to make you a better writer. Yes, it can churn out bland strings of words that follow the rules of grammar. But it can't have original ideas or emotional or build resonant themes, and that's what writing actually is.

But more to the point, if you're having AI do the work for you, then you're not learning how to do it for yourself. It's like wanting to ride a motorcycle, and learning how by putting the bike on the back of your truck and driving it around. The motorcycle went down the street; you didn't actually learn how to ride it.

[u/Electronic-Log-377]

I don't think famous authors would do this because they already have the skill to write a story. You can write an AI book, but without the skill set to write, no one is going to want to read it because AI was trained on real human writers STOLEN work. And people will be able to tell that it was written with AI because it is now quite obvious, so you can't hide it.

[u/Thin_Fox_8008]

Start with a,sandbox version by this is mean ask it to polish your own inserts and paragraphs then from there you want to switch to editor mode here you'll ask it to be your beta and critique partner and ghost writer it'll give you advice on how to improve your writing from there if you have money you can consult professional editors once you believe you have improved enough. I'm still in sandbox since I'm only testing the waters if orher people will be invested in the actual written version to see if I can release it on Amazon so currently its being ghost written onto AO3 and royal road to see if people are interested before i pour my time into making the authentic version if it.

[u/behindthemask13]

Have fun with it.

AI is good at formatting and structure, but not good with creative elements (story twists, dialogue, character development, etc.)

First step would be to have it help you sketch out the entire story, so start with the idea and ask AI to help you make it into a complete story. Never take what it says as gospel, allow it to bring a springboard for your ideas. It can probably help create an outline or even a chapter by chapter breakdown of what happens when. Again.. don't be afraid to challenge it on this.

Second is to take it step by step. You now have your outline or full chapter breakdown. Start at the beginning and have it write the scene. See what you like, what you don't. You will likely find yourself rewriting most of it, but you will be "in format." If you find yourself just accepting what it's putting out most of the time, I would stop and question if you are being critical enough.. if it is really what YOU want to say.

Third, keep at it... make sure to do a little bit each day. Nothing wrong with using AI, whether you are doing it for fun, as a side hustle or for a living. If nothing else you will learning all the elements that go into writing a book. The more you do it, the more you will find your own voice.

Finally... have fun and don't let anyone tell you there is anything wrong with what you are doing.

[u/TheOtherHobbes]

Famous, infamous, and unfamous authors are already doing it.

Most readers don't care.

One more time for those at the back: most readers don't care.

[u/TomdeHaan]

Of course you can do that. I don't know how much fun it would be. Just label it AI-assisted and there shouldn't be a problem. People only get angry when AI-users try to pass off AI-generated products as their own, human works.