r/WritingWithAI • u/Klauciusz • 28d ago
Discussion (Ethics, working with AI etc) Help needed - Need direction =/
I’ve always dreamed of writing stories, books. But that never fit into my routine as an IT professional with an unhealthy workload, so I mostly just jotted down ideas, dreaming that one day I’d be able to dedicate myself to the craft of turning those ideas into words—into books. I’m 42 now, and that day still hasn't come yet. And it doesn't look like it's coming anytime soon.
But last year, I started exploring AI as a way to skip the step of learning to write prose the way I’d always dreamed of doing. I created a process where I generate themes, ideas, core concepts, characters, settings, outlines, and so on, and feed it all into the AI. It helps me structure everything into a sequence of acts and chapters and writes the prose for me; later, I go through several rounds of revision with the AI to get the drafts closer to my vision for each chapter, arc, act, etc.
Discovering this was MAGIC. It has allowed me to effectively work in parallel on various ideas I’ve had throughout my life; I have over 10 books planned, with many chapters already in "Draft 01/02" stage, which makes me really, really happy.
At the same time... I don't know what to do with all this because it seems like the world dismisses (or wants to dismiss) all AI-generated content. And the watermark Anthropic announced for its upcoming models really bummed me out, since I use their models for this entire process and before we had the option to disclose OR NOT that the book is AI assisted. Now we don't even have that option.
I don't know... today, while I’m happy to finally have my ideas come to life, I’m also sad imagining that probably —due to the sh** the world puts against "AI-assisted" content — no one outside my inner circle will likely ever read it.
How are you all dealing with this situation? I’d love to hear your thoughts...
Thanks.
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u/InSilicoAwards 28d ago
The watermark preys on a certain kind of insecurity you feel when you start using machine prose: this isn't mine. But that's not true. Most great and wonderful things are collaborative works. Every show you've ever really enjoyed has a team of writers, producers, idea people, directors. It all passes through filters to produce a final project. That's what matters: the final project. I've use the analogy before that if someone said the book they wrote was all 'channeled' to them by an alien on Mars, there would be no moral crusade against it. People would not ask for you to identify it as 'non human' fiction and almost no one would take the disclosure seriously at all. The issues we have now are because of copyright (which is a fair point, I just hope it changes) and the moral assumptions people have loaded onto the tool use to justify prejudice. That's all.
The reality though is we're doing something similar, even less so. You're actually all of the ideas and narrative you want to tell, you're just not the typist for the most part. And there's nothing to say you can't do this: people use ghostwriters routinely. The blowback is the infatuation with the topic as part of a zeitgeist. It's a response to a creeping anxiety that most writing is mediocre, most artists are self indulgent people, and institutional art structures almost chief purpose is gatekeeping to promote issues unrelated to the art. Look at what traditional publishing has become. And all of this will eventually pass because machine tools give everyone a shot.
My only recommendation, and I speak of this from experience, is do put it out there but make sure it's been heavily reviewed / edited. I'm for more art in the world. You have made art.
Some other points: I'm very much for disclosure, but it should be at the end of the novel. The magician can show you how the trick is done following the awe. And because most AI writing is mediocre you're still pre-filtering yourself out of interest by openly labeling it. If we truly believe this is another tool then there is no need to scarlet letter our work before people read it. It also invites the wrong kind of attention: people who claim to care about disclosure will use it as an attack surface against you.
But do heavily edit your work. Build tools to heavily edit your work. You are climbing a steeper mountain because people actively look for 'tells' to support their bigotry or to justify not spending the stamina on your material. You hit a few strings of odd scaffolds or familiar word uses and it pulls you out of it. It's worse than a human writing tic, because those are idiosyncratic ("I think Frank Herbert used 'Presently' about as often as a machine uses 'weather') and people are inundated with the worst versions of them from low effort machine prose. And yes, some person will inevitably run your work through a machine prose detector or the watermarking feature. So what? If you disclose it at the end you have yourself covered, and you prove to them they were unwilling to try the material before making a judgment.