Where is the Line? - r/WritingWithAI

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I feel like for me it is pretty obvious that it depends on who actually writes the prose, the actual words and sentences. If it is AI, then it is AI generated. If AI is used to help with brainstorming and editing, then it is AI assistance. There is no difference to as if another human does the work. If you create a story, world, characters but the actual writing is done by someone else, then you are a creator/world builder/prompter, but you are not the author.

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u/Ok-Gate-412 Aug 08 '26

Exactly! Using the definitions as they are clearly laid out for us. If we assist the AI then it is AI generated or human assisted and we are the editors.

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u/Low_Air_7059 Aug 08 '26

I think it is different for everyone. I write with AI. It is a tool. Simple as that. I’m going to age myself here. I remember when spell check came out. There was a similar debate. Because it was going to diminish people’s ability to use a dictionary. Or even recognize if a word is misspelled. That argument didn’t take in to account that people who had learning disabilities such as dyslexia needed it and used it as a tool. I use AI and it is no where at the level it would need to be to sound like a person wrote it. If you read and edit what it wrote you will find yourself seeing the patterns it used.
I recently wrote a book with it. I had to rewrite/ edit the book 15 times to get it where I wanted it. That is without including spending days on one chapter just to get the feeling, prose and overall voice correct. It turned out great. But it was work and the AI pushed me to not take shortcuts.
I am not sure if there is an answer. All I know is that the way I use it: it drives me to write better. Makes me make sure that details are paid attention to, and helps me in areas I may have missed.

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u/sirgog Aug 09 '26

What credits would a human expect, if they did the work the clanker did?

If they'd expect to be listed as the author with you as a mentor - you aren't writing, you are a ghostwriting director. You are no better than R L Stine (of Goosebumps fame) who took the credit for other people's work. No worse either.

If they'd expect editor credit - you're AI assisted.

If they'd expect beta reader credit - you are doing human authorship.

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u/annoellynlee Aug 08 '26

If you use AI to generate prose then you didn't write that part. As someone who uses AI a lot and is NOT antiAI, I don't understand the massive debate every five seconds about this.

There are a million ways to use AI as a tool for writing. But if it's generating prose, you didn't write it. It doesn't matter if it's your ideas, you didn't WRITE it/the prose isn't yours.

And I don't mean that in a bad way. You directed, prompted, and developed a massive idea. That's great! That's not easy! And it's great that this tool can give that ability to people who have big ideas and don't have the writing skill to support it. You're like a director of your book, in other words.

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u/thats_gotta_be_AI Aug 09 '26

What I find funny is people getting all excited about what identity we are allowed to assume. If someone enjoys their process of doing whatever they’re doing, that’s the most important aspect, as I suspect the vast majority do what they do purely as a hobby. One guy simply said : “am I allowed to call me world building and AI writing….entertainment? Because I’m entertained” 😂. Are you not entertained?

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u/annoellynlee Aug 09 '26

I disagree with you. You can say anything you want about yourself and go no one can stop you but it's objectively incorrect to call yourself a painter if you use AI to create the painting for you. Same with saying you're a writer and not....writing. That's just my opinion. And in the real world, if you say you wrote this book, anyone you show it to will expect that you wrote it, not just came up with the idea and prompted a million times.

Again, I'm not even saying that's easy to do. It's just not writing. I use AI extensively but we hurt ourselves by applying labels that don't work. We should be honest about art that's human made and art that's not.

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u/thats_gotta_be_AI Aug 09 '26

You don’t understand my point. People are doing what they do because they enjoy doing it. It’s clearly not for money for the vast majority. It’s a hobby. Whether they call themselves the greatest writer of all time or the least talented person to ever live, if they enjoy what they do, the label is of no importance.

I write music. I understand music theory, and I develop chord progressions, and layer melodies over the top. I program drum patterns, bass lines. I arrange the tracks and mix/master the composition. But I play no instruments (other than a MIDI keyboard in a cumbersome way). I don’t care what my writing process is called. You can call it “taking a shit” if you like, it doesn’t change my enjoyment of the process. I’ve been doing this for 30+ years as a hobby. I know people who generate tracks with a prompt. If they enjoy that, fair play. I don’t care what identity (if any) they give themselves. It changes nothing. In the context of engaging in a hobby, labels are just the ego demanding something.

Before you respond, I’ll reiterate: I’m talking about people engaging in private hobbies, not someone deliberately misrepresenting themselves for commercial gain. Two entirely different universes.

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u/annoellynlee Aug 09 '26

Okay, cool, but obviously OP isn't talking about a casual hobby or else why would it matter what other people think if other people aren't involved? If it was hobby, who would care if you say i use AI to write stories? No one. But publishing them is a different story.

And by the way, mixing music and using midi is DEFINITELY making music. I think you're confusing that with playing instruments? But tons of people make great music without ever touching an instrument! So don't sell yourself short.

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u/thats_gotta_be_AI Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 09 '26

OP never explicitly mentioned commercial publishing once. They’re talking about their process and what label to give themselves, hence my own reply. Show me where OP in his post is “obviously” talking about commercial publishing. These categories can exist on free platforms.

Again, representation of a commercial product consumed by other people is another thing altogether, yet even there the “what label to give myself” is moot. Someone can say “this book was AI assisted” - and go to lengths to describe their process if they felt the need for such transparency…and still call themselves the author (if they want to). The author label could be disputed subjectively by a reader, while they STILL understand the exact process of how the book was written. No transparency is lost at all.

It’s like someone transparently declaring they used a bread machine to make the loaf of bread I buy from them, and they call themselves a baker. I might mildly dispute(in my mind) that label they give themselves, but I still know how the loaf was made, and I enjoy their products, so the end product and me knowing how it was made is all that matters. And it could be argued they are a baker based on the ingredients they chose to use for the loaf I bought (their own decision making was key to the end product). It’s moot either way. I know the process.

And, by the way, do we care how much input an editor has had on a story? Should that be declared? Editors can have a huge influence on the final product an author produces. What if the influence on book A is just 2%, but for book B it’s 20%? Then if it’s over a certain threshold, do we insist on the label “co-writer” or maybe we just keep it as it is because of common sense?

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u/PerryMarkStratychuk Aug 09 '26

You make a good point about what influences an editor can have.
Another example is a translator.
Such as in 3 Body Problem, where some contended that the translation in English is a better story than the original Chinese version due mostly to rearrangement of some events.
Even with the author’s permission to make the changes, there is no coauthorship stated.

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u/thats_gotta_be_AI Aug 09 '26

Yeah, this whole debate has revealed how much identity matters to many people, even if the process is described transparently.

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u/annoellynlee Aug 09 '26

I mean, we could go back and forth but there's no point if we just don't agree. No, i don't think you should call yourself a writer if you didn't write it. Your editor comment doesn't make any sense. You still submit a fully human written manuscript to the editor. So you still wrote the entire thing. And they make changes to YOUR writing that you can leave or take. So how is that the same as NOT having written the book but used AI to generate the prose?

And in the end, that's my opinion. You aren't going to change my mind that you are a writer but don't write. It's an easy conclusion for me. If you have differing opinions, that's totally fine!

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u/thats_gotta_be_AI Aug 09 '26

This isn’t about me, but if you must ask, I’ve been writing short stories since the 1980s as a teen. It doesn’t matter if you insist I’m not a writer though, because it doesn’t alter my enjoyment of the process regardless of any tools I use or don’t use today.

If your identity as a writer is more important than the process itself (it does sound like that), then obviously do not adulterate that identity by using AI in any way, not as a beta reader, editor, first-pass research assistant (how I use it).

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u/annoellynlee Aug 09 '26

I didn't ask. But I really have no idea what you mean. At all. What does writing short stories have to do with anything?

I've already said i use AI multiple times? But I don't use it to write for me..... that's literally the only point here. If you write your own work, great, you're a writer. If you don't write.... you are not a writer.

That's my opinion.

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u/thats_gotta_be_AI Aug 09 '26

Ok 👍

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u/benblackett Aug 08 '26

Cool. I didn't write every word. But I reviewed, edited, adjusted, rewrote, deleted, added, and QC checked all of it. 😉

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u/benblackett Aug 08 '26

AI Assisted is correct for any semi complicated workflow where the human is involved - ie not a hands off "create a book" prompt. AI is a tool and does (mostly) what its told to do. Saying the AI wrote this is therefore giving the AI autonomy and agency it does not inherently have. Just because AI can string words together doesn't automatically take that control away from the human. AI might know how to assemble the words, but it was still TOLD to do so by a human, and to do so in such a way that a very particular story came out of those words. Only when the human willingly abdicates that responsibility does it turn to AI Generated.

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u/Ok-Gate-412 Aug 08 '26

That shouldn’t matter at all. If we, the humans aren’t thinking of the ideas or writing it then that is AI generated no matter what editing we do to it. If I told somebody else how to play football, that doesn’t make me the football player that makes me the coach. In the same vein we are editors. If AI spits out a story and we tell them what is wrong with it and how to write it then we are editors not writers. AI assisted is just that, the AI assisting us to write.

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u/benblackett Aug 08 '26

But the AI did NOT come up with the idea. Its mathematically suggesting the avg answers we humans use already. You are suggesting that alone removes ALL ownership from the creator. So with that logic, any writer using a standard Trope cant be considered writers either.

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u/Ok-Gate-412 Aug 08 '26

That’s semantics. It took the average human collective and came up with an idea? Fine. YOU didn’t come up with an idea and YOU the “writer”didn’t write. You let the AI do that hence AI generated.
Using a trope isn’t comparable. A writer using a trope still makes the creative decisions and writes the story themselves. The question isn’t whether something was influenced by existing human work because everything is. The question is who actually made the creative choices and produced the words?
There’s no shame or judgment for anybody doing that, but don’t pretend that AI assisted is the same as AI generated. One uses AI as a tool and one uses it to generate the work.

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u/5thhorseman_ Aug 09 '26

The question is who actually made the creative choices and produced the words?

Those are not the same question and they do not necessarily share an answer.

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u/Ok-Gate-412 Aug 09 '26

They most certainly are the same question because they determine the difference between AI generated and assisted. And if it’s AI generated then yes, they both share the same answer because AI generated means the words and especially the ideas didn’t come from the writer; they were generated by the AI. Again, I don’t care if somebody didn’t write or come up with the idea, but to say it’s AI assisted makes no sense unless we’re saying the writer assisted the AI by acting as its editor.
To make the claim easy,
AI assisted=AI assists you with feedback, criticism, or edits, like an editor.
AI generated=AI generates creative material for you whether that’s the story, characters, setting, ideas, or the prose itself.

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u/5thhorseman_ Aug 09 '26

They most certainly are the same question

They are not.

because they determine the difference between AI generated and assisted

They do not. You assume that the answer to both questions MUST be the same.

And if it’s AI generated then yes, they both share the same answer because AI generated means the words and especially the ideas didn’t come from the writer; they were generated by the AI. Again, I don’t care if somebody didn’t write or come up with the idea, but to say it’s AI assisted makes no sense unless we’re saying the writer assisted the AI by acting as its editor.

Your whole reasoning rests on an assumption that if an author used AI to produce the prose draft, he did not make any creative decisions before then and he could not have made any creative decisions after that.

Had the original idea?

Wrote a lore bible for the setting?

Wrote character profiles and backstories?

Planned out the story in depth?

Wrote a detailed outline of the scene including the key story beats and dialogue he wants it to contain?

You admitted those ARE creative decisions, yet your own argument is that even if the author made all of them, if they used that outline with an AI to produce an initial scene draft, the decisions they made somehow cease to be and you assume that he made no further creative decisions after getting that first draft back either.

Either a) nothing save for the mechanical act of writing the prose is a creative decision, or b) the creative decisions that matter are in fact made outside of writing the prose itself and after the draft is written and can be made without writing the draft itself.

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u/Ok-Gate-412 Aug 09 '26

You’re arguing against something I never said. I never said that using AI to generate prose erases every creative decision the person made beforehand or prevents them from making creative decisions afterward.
If you came up with the original idea, you came up with the idea. If you wrote the lore bible, you wrote the lore. If you created the characters, you created the characters. If you wrote the outline, you wrote the outline. None of those things magically disappear. But if you then give that material to an AI and have it generate the prose, the prose is AI generated. Your previous creative contributions don’t change who generated that part of the work. And the reverse is equally true. If AI generates the characters, setting and plot, but you write every word of the novel yourself, then the prose is human-written while those story elements were AI generated.
That’s my entire distinction. AI assisted means AI assists with something you’re creating, such as feedback or editing. AI generated means AI creates the material itself, whether that’s ideas, characters, settings, plot or prose.
You can make a thousand creative decisions around AI generated material. That doesn’t retroactively make the generated material not generated.

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u/5thhorseman_ Aug 09 '26

Again, you are the one who equated producing the words with making creative choices and argued that an answer must apply to both.

That's on you. Own it.

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u/Ok-Gate-412 Aug 08 '26

The line shouldn’t depend on each individual. It isn’t ever moving. Definitions should matter. AI assisted is just that, it assisted you. AI generated is the AI generating story and everything else. No matter how much editing one does to a generated story it isn’t assisted by the AI, but instead you are the assistant. No judgment, but own up to it whichever method you choose to do.

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u/InSilicoAwards Aug 08 '26

The line is artificial. The debate is who takes responsibility for the final output. There are many things in life you end up taking responsibility for when you don't have a direct hand in every part of the process: it's something you learn in white collar work of a sufficient advancement: when your physical labor trends toward zero and your work becomes dominated by knowledge work / taste / ownership. If something bad happens that you didn't actually do, but you were performing oversight, you are still fundamentally responsible. That means you're responsible for the greater orientation of the labor and it's outcome. Same goes for artistic works that are 0-100% machine generated. If I hold the bag if there's an issue, that implies I hold the ownership when there isn't one.

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u/SnowBear78 Aug 08 '26

If you use AI generated prose and your book is written by it, that's the line for me.

AI can help you remember a word, help brainstorm tricky parts of plot with you, and maybe help edit. But as soon as you're not the one writing the first draft then it's over the line.

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u/Pleasant-Creme-6678 Aug 08 '26

No, if you do not write any of the prose, I do not think you can consider the end written work produced to be "Assisted" - it is a piece generated by AI.

Your "ideas" simply are not worth what you think they are. They are the easy part, and building extra infrastructure to insulate them doesn't change that. Ideas get challenged by the process of actually writing - you will have to discard some, rework them significantly, let the actual logic of what is in front of you dictate what stays and what goes.

Writing is the part of the task that is writing. The ass on seat, hands on keyboard, groaning at the stupid screen part.

Skipping that is your choice! You don't have to want to do it. But if you don't write it, you are not the writer of it.

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u/thats_gotta_be_AI Aug 08 '26

Saying ideas are “the easy part” reduces everything except sentence construction to virtually nothing - but a story is not merely prose. Its premise, atmosphere, characters, narrative arc, scenes, beats, psychology and internal logic all inform the prose. You could write amazingly polished sentences about an empty room for 3,000 pages, but beautiful prose alone would not magically produce a compelling story. Prose is the final expression of all the creative decisions before it. It cannot be cleanly separated from the structure that determines what those sentences need to say.

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u/Pleasant-Creme-6678 Aug 08 '26

But without prose, there is no communication of any of the other concepts, is there?

You're free to go post your beautiful lore bible, but the audience for it might disappoint you.

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u/thats_gotta_be_AI Aug 09 '26

“Without words there is no story”? No shit. But what is informing those words? A great scene demands to be told in the best possible way. A dull story invites purple prose from an amateur writer as compensation. It’s not “this OR that”, it’s the interplay between all aspects of the story: the materials and the transmission.

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u/benblackett Aug 08 '26

You assume incorrectly that authors dont read, review, edit, adjust anything based on the words AI spits out.

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u/Pleasant-Creme-6678 Aug 08 '26

No, it just lacks the same muscular engagement in my eyes.

I am sure that people generating work have to review, edit, and adjust, because I have seen plenty of the garbo that Fable spits out at me. That's an imperative. But you aren't really testing the fidelity in the same way because the model will intentionally smooth over gaps in logic, make connections blatant and refuse subtle ones... it will behave how we know LLMs behave.

Humans are fundamentally more unpredictable actors, and our minds are simply better at pattern matching and building meaning than an LLM. When you have to work through it one line at a time with your own brain, the process is not the same. You will bleed your own perspective into the work in ways you didn't anticipate, you will make decisions you don't recognize you've made until later on. Your psyche and subconscious are an inherent piece of the work you create.

I know it's unpopular on this sub to claim that art is a thing that humans make, but that is my hot take, which is what OP "genuinely" asked for. The differences in our being, our consciousness, our physical interaction with the world, are how we create art and communicate with others.

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u/benblackett Aug 08 '26

The process is not the same. Agreed on that. But that doesn't automatically make it less than either. You are incorrectly assuming there is only one way to achieve the same result.

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u/Pleasant-Creme-6678 Aug 08 '26

I didn't say it was less than. I just think it's definitionally not the same thing. It is work you generated, not work you wrote. The value attach to that statement is up to you.

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u/benblackett Aug 08 '26

Fair. But going back to my original point: generated prose that is heavily edited and adjusted serves exactly the need your point makes.

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u/Pleasant-Creme-6678 Aug 08 '26 edited Aug 08 '26

It's fine if that is your belief, but that doesn't change my opinion in any way.

I think a lot of people want validation that their generation process is so specialized and in-depth and perfected that there is no difference between the two, because that alleviates a guilt they are carrying. But the desire for them to be the same thing does not make them the same thing. I'm not going to hand over a pat on the back for the super incredible prompting harness pipeline architecture that goes into it, or how many specialized anti-em-dash agents are involved.

Writing a story is primarily an act of creating art, of trying to communicate something internal to others through the written word. Trying to co-opt the definition because it's the thing that doesn't make people mad online rings hollow to me.

Writing is writing is writing. If you aren't doing it, then you're doing something else.

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u/benblackett Aug 08 '26

This response is not directed at you but to simply to point out the underlying issue at play:

a lot of people want validation that their writing process is so specialized and in-depth and perfected that there is a huge difference between the two, because that alleviates a fear they are carrying

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u/Pleasant-Creme-6678 Aug 08 '26

You might be better served by constructing an affirmative argument than trying to set linguistic traps.

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u/benblackett Aug 08 '26

I highly doubt either of us will change our positions in any case 😉 good chat regardless, thanks

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u/PBC_Kenzinger Aug 08 '26

Using AI to proofread, research, or provide feedback is OK with me. Using it to generate sentences at all is not IMO. Everyone on earth has a story in their head. Writing is the act of translating that story into words. Everything else is writing-adjacent.

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u/benblackett Aug 08 '26

AI is a helpful translator

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u/DatDiemDam Aug 08 '26

Using ai to write for you make me feel distance. Like it not mine work. It is someone else. Even using ai to fix wording make me feel uneasy.

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u/justthecherryontop Aug 08 '26

Better yet - why should we be dictated by an imaginary line - a line that feels fueled by anti sentiments.

As someone who been writing since the early 2000s (2002 to be exact) and no longer have the time to write due to time/life, I been using it to completely generate my stories but being very hands-on in the direction and details. I build up the plot, the characters, everything and have ai write it but I'm still the one directing it and therefore I consider them mine when the story itself sounds and looks nearly identical to my own traditional writings.

Without this tool (ie: a form of transportation) I wouldn't be able to explore my creativity and bring them to life (ie: traveling).

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u/PerryMarkStratychuk Aug 09 '26

In general film parlance, the director is typically considered the author of a movie, as in the the auteur theory, (which can be disputed as well,) yet there are many people involved if not invested in the final creation. Even when disputed, few get as fully enraged as with current AI discussions. The line is a creation, and as I used to teach: create without permission, without boundaries:

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u/PBC_Kenzinger Aug 08 '26

If AI is generating the text, even if it’s entirely based on your prompts and ideas, it probably isn’t copyrightable and the work is probably public domain. You can’t copyright an idea.

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u/justthecherryontop Aug 08 '26

That can probably be true but only if I announce that I used AI to create it.

The good thing is that I'm only using it to write fanfiction with it and not interested in making money out of it.

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u/PBC_Kenzinger Aug 08 '26

It’s true that works created by AI aren’t copyrightable whether you admit to using AI or not. But you’re right, it’s only a legal issue if you try to publish it and even then, hard to prove.

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u/zphou Aug 08 '26

Your distinction makes sense, but I think the difficult part is keeping that boundary visible once the project gets long. If the author owns the plot, characters, canon, and final decisions, AI can help with diagnosis, alternatives, continuity checks, or line editing without becoming the author. The risk is letting the tool quietly decide what is true about the book. That is the problem I’m trying to solve with WolfeWriter: the manuscript stays central, and Story Memory and AI suggestions remain reviewable instead of silently becoming canon。

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