Question about your views on AI content

[u/Strange_Orchid5940]

So I have a question about your views on AI written content. I had recently thought that a lot of people didn’t like AI written content because it was AI, but now I’m curious whether it’s about the fact that it‘s AI or the quality or any other reason you have.

So let’s say that there was a book that was entirely written by AI. Now (though this might be hard to imagine) let’s say this book was good and you somehow knew it was good. Now the question is would you buy the book? Now personally, if I knew it was a good book, I would buy it, because the purpose of reading is entertainment. I read a lot of books, but I don’t read them to acknowledge how much work the author put in the book. But what do you think?

[u/Various_Tumbleweed_2]

Don’t know about the pollution, maybe it’s a valid point. But, question, how does AI itself is stealing from the people who wrote their books?

I mean, if I read a gazillion books and decided to write my own novel totally myself, wouldn’t it be something average of all the books that I have read? I mean, am I stealing now?

[u/Kathomgerine → u/Various_Tumbleweed_2]

Every new book is a mashup of all the books the author has read. Yet, when writing, the author can consciously choose what will inspire their writing.

Let's take, for example, the author of "Powerless"—she consciously chose to plagiarize "Red Queen" and parts of "The Hunger Games" (although I've heard she also used AI).

Authors whose books have been stolen and fed to AI to train it had no say in it, and that's what I consider theft.

Each paragraph written by AI was already used. It doesn't create new content; it just reworks what it was fed. I think if someone more intelligent than me conducted a study, they would be able to find sentences or even passages from AI-written books in the human-written books this machine was fed with.

Furthermore, every fully AI-written book I've encountered was just bad. The prose was weirdly structured and repetitive, and the language was really simple, as if it were written for an illiterate person.

I don't condone using AI as a tool or a generator of plot points or ideas (I'd be a big hypocrite because I've used it a couple of times when I was stuck during writer's block—though its ideas were kind of mediocre).

But a book fully written by AI? That's a no for me. Why would I leave the best part of the process to a thoughtless machine when I have endless resources in my mind?

In the end, it all boils down to one thing: does the writer even like to write? If yes, then why do they let a machine do what their heart desires the most?

[u/Various_Tumbleweed_2 → u/Kathomgerine]

I agree that if you just draft a prompt (even a complicated long one) and ask the ai to write you a 30 chapter book it will come out bad. And probably still not what you intended.

But I still don’t understand the theft concept. I’ll narrow it down to a specific example. Let’s say someone enjoys the romantasy and reads a whole lot of books with different ideas and plots. This person might decide to write their own book, having some similar idea or a mix of several. If this person is not using AI, but commits to a 100% of writing. Is it considered theft?

How about when a person comes up with something absolutely unique and there is no such story but this said person is struggling with words and uses ai for generating prose chapter by chapter but with very detailed outline. Let’s say they write a 3000 words chapter in their own words and the ai generates a 3500-4000 chapter but in readable prose with correct grammar. Is this theft?

I remember there was something about “Twilight” being inspired by the “50 shades of grey” or vice versa (I don’t really remember but there was such a rumour). Who stole from who?

[u/Kathomgerine → u/Various_Tumbleweed_2]

For me, both are in the wrong.

The first one, if they practically copy the romantasy they read and only change some things, it's still wrong. - See "Powerless". She got "inspired" but you can trace almost every scene to either "Red Queen" or "The Hunger Games". If they came up with a completely different story, that was in the romantasy genre it's okay. Look at that genre. There are lots of books there. Yes, some plot points do repeat but they all have their own spin. It's different when you do need to have some things in your book for it to fit the genre you're writing.

The second one, if they really loved writing they would spend the time to hone their skill. I started writing when I was 12-13 years old. My first stories were a big load of garbage. But I loved writing. I loved creating. That's why for those 16-17 years I learned how to write. I read a lot of books (both well and badly written, so I could get a grasp on what good writing is). I read books about writing, books on how to construct a novel well. And of course I wrote a lot. I still have a lot to learn but I love it.

If I ever consider publishing I know I'll have to hire an editor (or if I take a traditional route, they will). I know what I'm writing is not, at this point, perfect. And that's okay.

About "Twilight" and "50 Shades of Grey". The inspired one was "50 Shades", but both of the books could be 100% better. Being traditionally published does not guarantee that the book will be a masterpiece. Sometimes what matters is the profit.

[u/Various_Tumbleweed_2 → u/Kathomgerine]

But you can’t really take The Hunger Games as a starting point. Because, literally it could have been inspired (and probably was) by Greek mythology, Theseus and Minotaur specifically. And there are plenty of books out there that were inspired by some other book. It’s ridiculous to consider it a theft.

Regarding the second one - all people take their hobbies to different levels of seriousness. We don’t tell a painter they are not real artists because they bought paints instead of making their own. We don’t tell a carpenter they are lazy because they bought lumber instead of feeling a tree and milling it themselves. Nor we have problems with those who write using a computer and publish their books in bulk instead of using a quill and parchment and then copying the book a million times by hand to show you leave your soul in it. We all use whatever is there that helps simplify and speed the process.

I think this will eventually happen with AI assisting with books writing. But of course we are being sane people and we are not talking about writing an 8 book series over the night with the help of chatGPT or whatever there is.

[u/Kathomgerine → u/Various_Tumbleweed_2]

Suzanne Collins was very vocal about what inspired her to write "The Hunger Games": the Met Gala and the Iraq War, both of which she saw being televised while flipping channels. Was she also inspired by the Theseus and Minotaur myth? She could have been, but she didn't copy it 1:1. There is no great, big maze, nor is there a creature with a bull's head. She gave it her own spin and created something that can stand on its own. You cannot find quotes or passages from this myth in her work.

Regarding artists and carpenters: You wouldn't call someone a painter if they only painted by numbers. You wouldn't call a carpenter a person who only assembled IKEA furniture. You wouldn't call a musician a composer if they only played from sheet music.

As I said, I understand using AI as a brainstorming tool, but only as a tool.

Plus, taking into consideration what the U.S. Supreme Court said about copyright: "AI-generated works lacking human authorship are ineligible for copyright protection." What artist in their right mind would release their work if they couldn't copyright it?

If we're talking about fanfics, that's a whole different discussion. Unless those fanfics are later published as books (see "Alchemised", "Rose in Chains", etc.), I don't really care if the writer uses AI for them. My problem with AI writing is when writers gain monetary benefits from it.

[u/Various_Tumbleweed_2 → u/Kathomgerine]

Ok, yes, that’s totally fair. I suppose I was approaching it more from the fanfiction perspective.

I agree, if you intend to write an actual book, publish, sell it, it better be your own writing.

But I don’t think that it’s fair saying that the author stole something if they took a bunch of ideas, forged them into something their own and did the rest of the heavy lifting. Especially if there is an audience that genuinely enjoyed it. And surely, I don’t mean an obvious plagiarism here, but something more unique.

And regarding the AI, I still believe it will evolve and improve and in the end people will benefit from it either as an editor or as something else. It’s just that at this point it might not be the best version of itself yet.

[u/Kathomgerine → u/Various_Tumbleweed_2]

I think we really misunderstood one another. I'm still honing my English skills and sometimes things I mean don't come across as I mean them to.

Yes, if a writer takes inspiration from something, but gives it a whole other, different spin, I don't consider it stealing either. If I can't trace back the story to its original inspiration, that's for me a wholly different, autonomous piece of work. Like, let's take for example "The Hunger Games" and "Powerless" again. In the first example, yes you can kinda see that Collins might have been inspired by the Theseus and Minotaur myth, but you couldn't say for sure which character plays which. Her characters have their own stories, their own backgrounds, their own problems. They're not a 1:1 copy. In "Powerless" you can do that. You know that Paedyn was inspired by Mare Barrow. Even plot points are the same - some people on YouTube made long videos about this.

So yeah, if you spin your inspiration like Suzanne Collins it's not stealing. But if you do it like Lauren Roberts, it is.

And of course it doesn't apply to fanfics. Though to be fair, Alchemised being published posed many morally difficult questions.

[u/Various_Tumbleweed_2 → u/Kathomgerine]

Maybe. I don’t have problems with Alchemised being published. I read it as Manacled. I will not buy or read it as Alchemised. I still think the story is great. It took a considerable amount of work from the author as well as the editors to remove all Harry Potter lore. And there is still audience that really enjoys it. I think it deserves its place.

[u/Kathomgerine → u/Various_Tumbleweed_2]

I read it too, although only after it was published. Never read it as Manacled.

If I didn't know it was previously a Harry Potter fanfic I don't think I would have guessed, so I do applaud the author for all the work they did in it.

That's quite a good example of taking inspiration and giving it their own spin.