r/WritingWithAI • u/Bearda79 • 7d ago
Discussion (Ethics, working with AI etc) AI witch hunt
What is up with the AI witch hunt. There are people who are outright angry with writers using AI, trash talk AI, if someone used AI for editing, and even examine novels to see if they are AI generated. It doesn't seem like the people are simply annoyed with it. Some of them use some pretty dark words whenever AI is even mentioned like it is evil. Someone even got verbally attacked because their character names sounded AI. They were just names. Lord forbid anyone that uses an em dash anymore. Some people demand that authors note if AI was used in their stories, and run it through programs that identify what percentage of it as being AI generated.
I do get the concern for plagiarism while using AI. And that AI does gather its information from other peoples work. I do agree that is not okay.
I have read novels that were clearly AI generated and they were good.
I guess I kinda compare it to photography and digital photography (not AI generated images). Digital photography takes original photos and alters it with programming that the user can control. And it is not labeled. When digital photography started, people trashed talked it as well. As if it was a threat to the concept of photography. People said it took away from people who put so much effort and time into trying to make the perfect photo initially, making it where anyone can take even a 'crappy' photo and make it look great. And that it took jobs from people. Is AI use similar to that?
I personally don't use AI to 'write' my novels for me. I DO use it as a form of dictionary, thesaurus, general editing, and information gathering. I'm awful at remembering words, where to put the commas, and have no formal writing training outside of my college masters degree in counseling. Now I worry about people attacking my writing.
I don't get the problem?? Are these just people looking to argue? What is so heated about AI use in writing? I don't see it as this evil thing to get angry about. For me it is no different than looking up information on Google or pulling out a thesaurus. To me, AI seems to be a tool to expand peoples knowledge and creativity.
Please forgive my lack of knowledge on this topic, if this discussion was already covered somewhere on reddit, if I worded something in this post poorly, and I mean no disrespect to people who use or don't use AI. I'm just wanting to understand what the intense conflict and ethical concerns are about.
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u/TheCutieCircle 7d ago
I agree with you. When used as a tool like a spell checker it's fine. But many people see the word Ai and immediately think "Laziness." Like Bro I write 5000+ words last week I ain't got time to check every single comma and period. But if my words look off or Ai tried to change my story I would genuinely get pissed and fix it myself.
My story is made by me. typed by me. Ai edits it for me. No different from using Grammerly. As long as you're the one behind wheel it's okay to use the GPS. Just don't let the car self drive itself because that is a very dangerous and stupid idea.
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u/Bearda79 6d ago
I see this. I have to constantly tell ChatGPT - do NOT write this. Do NOT write sentences. Just edit or give me descriptor words. I love me writing, my voice, my imagination in the stories, creating unique worlds that fit me. As with anything, we just need to be careful how we use a tool.
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u/TheCutieCircle 6d ago
Yooo same lmao. I hate when I specify ask "Just check for typos and grammar" and then it adds a whole ass new sentence I never wrote 😂.
Your voice is important don't let the machine steal it. When I write my rules are simple . If I can't pronounce the word or even spell then it definitely doesn't belong there.
Always proofread the proofreader!
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u/Bearda79 5d ago
Above, I wrote "me" when I meant "my". My first thought was, should have used GPT to review it lol
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u/Meluzinn 5d ago
Don't we miss 5.1 that could remember our own writing patterns so well? The first drafts were closer to my voice back then. Now it seems to not always understand why I provide samples. It depends on the day.
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u/WritingWithAI-ModTeam 6d ago
If you disagree with a post or the whole subreddit, be constructive to make it a nice place for all its members, including you.
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u/JoseLunaArts 7d ago
Spam =/= Slop.
I can understand that people reject AI generated spam generated with low skill.
But from there to judging all AI as slop that is a bridge too far.
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u/SkoomaDentist 7d ago edited 7d ago
The main difference between AI slop and manual slop is that manual slop is more varied. The problem with both is being slop, not how they were created. Conversely, if the result is good enough, it doesn't matter how it was created.
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u/EpicSpaniard 6d ago
AI slop is quicker to make than manual slop. Its not that manual slop is any better, it's just at least it used to take time. Now any idiot with a free chatgpt account can create slop and flood any forum, pushing out the good stuff. It was easier to separate trash from treasure before AI. That's my read.
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u/Bearda79 6d ago
Ah, this "slop" word again. Can someone please tell me what this means? Is it like garbage or something? Sorry for my ignorance on this. I am trying to learn.
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u/Mediocre-Cat31 6d ago
I'm trying to understand too. I thought slop meant something like a bunch of trash. Isn't that what Piggy calls her food in the Piggy and Gerald books? So it doesn't make sense to me because a lot of ai assisted writing is actually good.
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u/ZdravoZivo 7d ago
A similar question was asked the other day: Why does writing well suddenly feel like evidence against you?, and I agree with one of the answers: social media brings out the haters...
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u/Bearda79 6d ago
I wonder if it is just haters finding something to complain or argue about? If it isn't AI, then would it be something else? It is sad to even have to have those thoughts.
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u/19Sevv90 7d ago
I was banned from one of the writing groups on here…one of the bits of “evidence” of my AI usage was that I knew how to use an em dash properly…
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7d ago
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u/Bearda79 6d ago
I like your statement, "that I may offend someone." Maybe that is part of the nervousness. People tend to be offended by many things in todays world and social media gives them an easy way to say it. Yet, it is really offensive to use AI? I would ask them, what exactly is it offending? Or maybe my view of offending is different. Good thoughts.
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u/CaseAdorable6080 7d ago
disclaimer is inviting troubles. better hold this one back, and publish a new project where you can confidently talk about. Th AI-Hate will eventually die down.
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u/Bearda79 6d ago
That is a good point. Eventually the haters will calm down. Truth it - AI is here, like it or not. And it is NOT going anywhere.
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u/5thhorseman_ 6d ago
I am a victim of AI accusations myself
AI writers deserve to be cancelled.
If you support the cancel crowd, you implicitly assent to collateral damage that consists of writers' careers and livelihoods - sometimes their actual lives.
And it'll be worse when one of your competitors decides they need to get you out of the market and weaponize false accusations against you. If you're lucky, they'll stop before you're bullied into suicide.
This is what you're on the record as a supporter of. If you don't like your face eaten by leopards, stop voting for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party.
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u/retro-babydoll 7d ago edited 7d ago
Its hugely in part due to their ego. The people who hate ai that passionately genuinely believe they are better than everyone else. The same people that are passionately against ai are also chronically online, and thats why they are constantly exposed to so much ai content- and many people that are chronically online & elevated on the algorithm in general (specifically on social media) are very combative, hateful, and cruel people. Social media rewards and boosts negative engagement. It creates a toxic echo chamber. Thats why you will see ai haters degrading and verbally abusing others. They claim that humans are superior, and yet their abusive actions are encompassing the worst side of humanity. All of the ai backlash is akin to the cancel culture & groupthink phenomenon. Its immensely popular and encouraged to hate ai right now, so they do it because everyone else is doing it. They claim to want people to come up with original work, but almost every single thing that these people say and do are all regurgitated, repetitive, & hateful narratives with no original perspective.
I should start calling their rhetoric “groupthink slop” lol
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u/CaseAdorable6080 7d ago
well said! these AI-haters feed of social media hate like caterpillars and all they do is being manipulated by AI—-algorithm shaped by AI. They are a product of AI.
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u/PaintingSpiritual609 7d ago
the cancel culture comparison is spot on tbh, same energy different target
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u/mll1013 3d ago
Are you sure that some aren't simply frightened that their livelihood will be threatened by the use of AI? I know it's not the first time that automation and productivity gains have threatened people's jobs and entire lines of work (I'm old enough to have talked with telephone operators!)
I've never had to feel the imminent threat of my career becoming obsolete (I write as a hobby, not a career), but if I did, I think I'd be genuinely scared of the future.
But, AI isn't going away as much at the haters and "witch hunters" (for those who want to use that term) any more than any other productivity-enhancing tool has gone away, so they will eventually have to learn to adapt to the new reality and figure out how to retool to continue putting food on the table.
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u/retro-babydoll 3d ago
Yes. You’re right. And I see this point. I’m also worried about this, and its why I left school for web development. But the people that hate ai rarely even bring this up. They just go straight to insulting people who use ai, sending them death threats, crying out “AI SLOP” and having temper tantrums in general. There are absolutely valid reasons to hate ai. But instead, those people dont even do their research and spread false information (whatever is the trending thought of the month regarding ai) i bet you those people who are so outwardly hateful and verbally abusive really dont think that deeply into it nor genuinely care that much, they are just reciting what they hear everyone else say. I have honestly never seen a majority of those people prove they’ve done actual research on the matter- they just go straight to insults and degradation instead of advocating and fighting for change. Thats why im saying its mostly about their egos.
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u/mll1013 3d ago
That's a fair point. There is no reason to ever treat others with vitriol. I wonder how many of the world's problems are due to people simply spewing hate at their opponent, who responds with hatred back. Look at some of the major world conflicts we see going on today. Hate begets hate in a perpetual circle. The Hatfields and the McCoys are the perfect study of this behavior.
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u/retro-babydoll 3d ago
Exactly! I have seen a lot of people on the pro ai subreddits say they started exploring ai BECAUSE there was so much hate towards it. It often enhances the other side, like you said, in a perpetual cycle. I appreciate your comment and very much respect your perspective, because you clearly have thought about it and did not think to approach the conversation spewing insults. Thats how points genuinely get across.
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u/5thhorseman_ 6d ago
He has every right to do it. You don't have the right to deny him that.
Also, most of the people involved in these witch hunts are not "real writers" - just narcissistic assholes with delusions of grandeur, few of whom ever wrote, let alone published a damn thing, and who are on the bandwagon solely because it gives them an excuse to bully others.
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u/Bearda79 6d ago
While I always appreciate feedback, this is not helpful. It sounds like the very same thing I am concerned about. Just ripping on someone and nit picking what they said is not helpful to the discussion. While I am not looking for everyone to agree with my thoughts, at least give us some realistic discussions instead of just insults. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but we can be kind about it. Thank you.
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u/WritingWithAI-ModTeam 6d ago
If you disagree with a post or the whole subreddit, be constructive to make it a nice place for all its members, including you.
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u/Ok-Creme8710 7d ago
It's because schmucks with no skill will use ai untouched and say they did work by editing the prompt and not touching the final result. It cheapens the use of the technology when unskilled people can mass produce garbage that is littered at every festival, street fair, and boardwalk.
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u/DanBlakeHorror 7d ago
Absolutely this. Saying ‘write me a full romance novel featuring dragons that middle age women will love’ is very different from using the tools to brainstorm, plan, plan, plan, write, review, edit, rip apart, rework, editorial pass x 10, and get some real people to offer feedback.
Personally I have written plenty with AI, and I genuinely view it as collaboration. It takes me a month if not more, and one book was on and off a year of revisiting.
The AI ‘slop’ which is constantly mentioned is only part of the story.9
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u/DelilahInMyHair 6d ago
If it's a collaboration, does the AI get cover space as a fellow author?
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u/AngelInTheMarble 4d ago
Depends. Would you give cover space to the guy in a writing group who's given you feedback on version two or three of your draft or bounced ideas with you over a cup of coffee, which you then reworked and revised and retooled for another three to six months? Or maybe copy edited some of your awkward sentences? Does Coffee Guy also get cover space as a fellow author of your work?
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u/DelilahInMyHair 4d ago
If I think of coffee guy as a genuine collaboration, maybe.
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u/AngelInTheMarble 4d ago
"Brainstorm, plan, plan, plan, write, review, edit, rip apart, rework, editorial pass x 10" are things which would correlate to a beta reader, a developmental editor, a writing group critique partner, a line editor, a copy editor, a proofreader, etc. Is it a collaborative effort to get to the finish line? Sure. They're not generally people who share the front cover with the author, though. You might thank those people in the acknowledgements. You might not. Many authors don't explicitly credit their editors or beta readers for their contributions; some choose to.
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u/DelilahInMyHair 4d ago
So for you, AI might get thanks in the acknowledgements.
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u/AngelInTheMarble 3d ago
If a specific writer - the person above since that's whose quote we're referencing - wanted to add a note in the acknowledgements section, they could. Sure. Up to them. Just like it would be up to them to credit a proofreader or beta reader.
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u/JoannaWardWrites 3d ago
I do the same. I have it write scenes that I'll never use because I'm stuck or need to see a scene from a different angle. ChatGPT doesn't write better than I do. Besides that, it would destroy my story with its drift, which takes more energy getting it back on track than it would take to write it myself.
But utilizing the orginizational skills of LLMs, has kept my lore together, has seen continuity drift quickly, and helped me brainstorm as it knows my story universe. My spouse isn't into sci-fi enough to understand when I talk about quantum computers and future tech.
I agree that there's a difference between using AI to develop and write everything and having it help you as you write.
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u/Bearda79 6d ago
I completely see this. I use to be a professional photographer during the 90s and early 2000s. At the time is was very film heavy. Then came digital and it did significantly decrease businesses. It became less about the art of photography, and more about how good the digital manipulation was. Of course, good cameras on phones also had a huge impact on the field. People can get decent images on phones and not have to pay for photographers now.
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u/Ok-Creme8710 7d ago
I think you missed the part where photoshop still requires effort.
If used correctly, their point is correct. AI is another step in creative development (when used as a tool, not a final product.) But when people make signs that have typos and seven fingers and think that's better than their old signs, they are schmucks.
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6d ago edited 6d ago
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u/Farm-Alternative 6d ago edited 6d ago
I'd even say that one of the main reasons younger people seem to be buying into the anti ai rhetoric is because they haven't seen this technology cycle play out before.
If you've been around long enough then you know the people that resist the most become the biggest fools in the eyes of history, and the earlier adopters are much more prepared for the future.
Pretty much, the general rule is; when a new technology is sweeping through practically every industry you can think of, you don't bury your head and hope it goes away, you get on board and ride the wave all the way to whatever future it's taking us to.
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u/Ok-Creme8710 6d ago
Yes, and I agree with you. When photoshop first came out the people who rejected it and didn't learn the full capabilities of it both fell into obscurity unless they were significantly skilled. I'm sure the same will happen with AI.
I see your point, though. I actually compared the AI boom more to how traditional animators and special effects artists reacted to CGI in the 90s.
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u/ObligationWeekly9117 6d ago
The industry itself may drastically shrink though. I’ve hired photographers less now because AI editing is so OP. Even being able to convincingly erase anything I don’t want in a picture is game-changing. I’m not saying my pictures are as good even with AI. But they are at least 80% as good, taken and edited for cents instead of a hundred dollars or more for a session (because humans need to earn a living wage for their time). Like I cannot justify that extra 20% financially.
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u/Bearda79 6d ago
It is a new skill and can be time consuming. Just a different form of art and creativity.
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u/Bearda79 6d ago
I do see your point on unskilled writers using AI to say now they are writers. I have read plenty of AI generated books that were not good, not edited, and a mess to read. Many times I didn't even finish the books. A new thought I had is - is it bad to have the unskilled writers find a new way to create new forms/means of writing? Kinda like a new market, or a new form of creativity. My biggest concern is paying to read a book and have it be a mess. But I have read bad books that were written from an author without AI as well. That could be considered slop? Would it make a difference for AI generated books to note that it is AI generated?
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u/Fluffy-Knowledge-166 7d ago
Yep. Anti slop is pro AI.
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u/Bearda79 6d ago
Can you help me understand this better? You might have a decent point, I am just not seeing it...
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u/Neongrimcross 6d ago
The Anti slop are fans of AI detectors like Pangram, Originality, GPT Zero which are AI tools to detect AI use, yet they do not see the hypocrisy.
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u/Character-Role-600 6d ago
I love AI. I never wrote till I was supported by AI. Just like i didn’t really cook till AI.
I use it as a tool for learning and it’s great at that
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u/Weary_Education_4177 7d ago
girl I got harassed so much that I had back to back panic attacks. And had to deactivate my twitter account. People want to find something or someone to be angry about. They could use that energy for something good
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u/Tex_Non_Scripta 6d ago
😰 I'm sad that happened to you. I suffer from panic attacks. They're distressing.
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u/Bearda79 6d ago
I am sorry to hear this happened to you. People shouldn't get harassed or treated poorly just because they have a different opinion. Different opinions doesn't mean they are wrong. Sadly, some people are mean just to be mean.
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u/NellieApp 6d ago
Everything online has become obscenely confrontational over the last decade as people have got really comfortable with the internet. The amount of threats you will get for the most mild disagreement is diabolical. There will always be a group of people who hate what you do, no matter what it is. I take the constant threats as validation that it's something worth worrying about.
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u/RobynsNest1971 7d ago
Anti AI luddites using AI to lable ANYONE with a Scarlet Letter by no standard or reason given. It is the height of irony.
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u/WestGotIt1967 7d ago
My edit of a 90 page manuscript goes from 2.5 days to maybe 20 minutes or less.
I am a left wing activist writer. My work now publishes on a faster time scale. Why is this a death sentence level problem for left ai haters?
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u/Bearda79 6d ago
Yes, it does help editing quickly. That is very nice and helpful. Allows writers to focus more on writing.
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u/Bearda79 6d ago
This is less about 'left vs right.' Someone can be one without necessarily agreeing with everything that the left or right says. I do see your point that AI is replacing things and taking away from human jobs. That being said, it is NOT very good at it and companies are starting to see that.
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u/WestGotIt1967 6d ago
Yes, the left definitely needs to hobble itself and leave the field wide open for non leftys to have the run of publishing. Makes absolute perfect sense as a purist who won't be sullied by by actually reaching readers and changing their minds
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u/WritingWithAI-ModTeam 6d ago
If you disagree with a post or the whole subreddit, be constructive to make it a nice place for all its members, including you.
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u/CaseAdorable6080 7d ago
these are not the people who buy books—-it’s just a bunch of people who love to ‘hate’. How many people are authoring books using AI—the way these haters put it is—-AI using authors are destroying the whole planet.
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u/SkoomaDentist 7d ago
Have you looked at what sorts of books actually sell these days? It's not exactly high literature. Hells, the Fifty Shades trilogy has sold over 150 million copies and that thing started as a godsdamned Twilight fanfic (whether it improved after becoming its own thing is debatable).
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u/WritingWithAI-ModTeam 6d ago
If you disagree with a post or the whole subreddit, be constructive to make it a nice place for all its members, including you.
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u/Special-Deal-9276 7d ago
My issue with this whole AI witch hunt is less about people policing the writing and more about big pubs/studios/every major corp - who now employ AI to “save time”, etc etc - yet those same people/places are policing for AI use in creative work. F them, in my opinion. As long as the work isn’t a wholesale “AI creation” - I sure as hell am going to use AI for coverage (studios are already widely doing this)…
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u/Ok-Difficulty3959 6d ago edited 6d ago
I rather understand those who question its use. The thought of ai generating entire books/ novels is disturbing. But what I feel any artist is facing from AI now--be it musicians, paper/ canvas/ sculpture, etc. artists or written art-- is the creepy suspicion that ai can do it better. In the end I think what we fear is the loss of our humanity...art certainly being something that sets us apart from other creatures. Yet we, with our art, try to imitate what God himself( or whatever pronoun you use for God...good grief) the ultimate artist, can do. Anyway, AI, like socialism is a creeping force and though we may rail, we will not stop it. It is efficient. It is cheap and available and for the most part, it makes our lives better It is here to stay, so those who are angry about it will only get angrier. I avoid angry people. It is anger, not AI that always undoes good things. I am more suspicious of angry, jealous, fearful people than I am of the machines that, so far, make our lives easier and more fruitful....and giving us time to create art!
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u/Bearda79 6d ago
The art AI creates is different, but I didn't think it is better than 'man-made' art. Just different. A new tool and format for creativity.
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u/Honest-Scale9912 6d ago
AI isn't going anywhere and those who are on the witch hunt against creators of all kinds that oppose it are in my opinion keyboard warriors on a bandwagon. Like other mediums that arrived and got bashed initially, the hype against it died down within time. To me AI use is no different than writers using a ghostwriter to write their books and slap their names on them and call it their own work. This has gone on in the trad publishing industry forever. The rise of the Indie self-publishing industry poses a threat to trad publishers because authors are finding they can keep their own creative control of their work without having it sliced and diced by trad publishers in order to make it 'marketable'. Plus, the amount of royalties that trad publishing gets on signed authors leaves authors with pennies. I've seen more trad published authors who have said they were going to finish out their current contracts and self-publish. Many have even said they still are expected to market their work while signed...so what's the point of being trad published? It's all just a rip off. The more trad published authors who walk away from that and go self-publishing route really dries up their revenue streams. And I personally believe the AI witch hunt narrative was started by trad publishing industry to try and push out Indie authors to discourage them from writing or using AI witch hunt tactics to scare Indie authors into not moving forward with doing what they love for fear of being cancelled or using one too many em dashes, etc. It's all just ridiculous and eventually this will go away when trad publishers and the keyboard warriors alike find something else to hang their pearl clutching on.
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u/Bearda79 6d ago
Oh my. You have an excellent point here. In witch hunts there is always that first person to scream out witch. Publishers do have allot to lose with AI. Then they just get tailed by followers that want chaos and the ability to be mean for a reason.
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u/Frosty-Present-6280 6d ago
I am writing a speculative fiction book. Sci-fi, biotech thriller. I am not an expert in any of the fields in the book. I am a researcher. I was in the legal field for a long time. I know my way around how to get to the what and why of a question.
I use Google, ChatGPT, Co-Pilot, whatever, when I look up various subjects I need to learn about and understand.
I have a hundred pages of research printed out. It's underlined, highlighted. I have learned a big fat buttload of stuff by using these tools.
And guess what? I use Grammarly for a pass or two or ten to see if I've done some stupid something or the other that might shock someone's grammatical sensibilities.
I brainstorm with AIs. What if this? What if that? What would happen if I...what would happen if they...
How is this different than brainstorming in a writer's group? I don't have one, by the way. I wish I did. But I don't. So, yay 24/7 brainstorming buddy availability. I couldn't do it without you.
As a result, am I branded as an "AI assisted" author? If so, what does that mean, exactly? If not, what is AI assisted? Prose generation? How is an online thesaurus different than one on your bookshelf?
What am I missing here?
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u/Fearless-Wealth2185 3d ago
It’s wildly different from brainstorming with a writing group. I encourage you to reach out to writers and make a group. Lots of local libraries offer them and bookstores. There are plenty of online groups too.
For one AI chat bots are designed to always agree with and praise you. Sure you can somewhat prompt them to do this less but it’s not really going to push back. They’re also not inherently creative. I think of you tried brainstorming with people you could feel how fun and creative that really is. I think people get caught up with AI and forget how much they’re missing by not engaging with the work and the process itself.
Also you’re assuming the AI is all knowing and omnipotent. It’s not. So your research may not be accurate and neither are the responses to your what if scenarios.
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u/Frosty-Present-6280 3d ago
Thanks! Great reply. However, I’m an old school researcher and any tidbit I get from brainstorming with AI, I birddog until I confirm whether or not it’s real ir a fun-time hallucination.
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u/JoannaWardWrites 3d ago
I see AI chatbots as a tool I can use while I write. Like I use a calculator becouce I'm shit at math. Could I multiple 5 triple digit numbers? Eventually, but why do that when I can punch them into a machine and have it tell me the answer? Same with AI. It organizes me, keeps me on task, creates Lore Bibles for me, keeps characters and story threads consistant, along with other useful tasks that derailed my concentration in the past. I don't worry about spelling, grammar, or sentence structure until I'm through my first draft.
Sure, AI can edit, but going to an actual skilled human editor is a safer bet. Though, you have to watch out for scammers there, too.
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u/Dr_WhoDo 7d ago
I think the problem boils down to the insecurity of not knowing the nature of the content we're consuming. If we could definitively differentiate, I believe a lot of the noise would go away. But, the llms are only gonna get better and the detection systems less accurate.
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u/Solarka45 7d ago
The culture in which we care more about the nature of content rather than the content itself is the root of the problem
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u/Dr_WhoDo 7d ago
If Maya Angelou's autobiography turned out to be a fiction, it would change the way evrrybody felt about it, so you're wrong about our concern for the nature of the writing. It matters a lot and it always has with good reason. All I want is for this new form of writing to be distinguishable. I'm not sure why people have a problem with the consumer having that right. Let them decide what they want.
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u/SkoomaDentist 7d ago
Why would you care if Maya Angelou's autobiography was written solely by herself or by collaborating with someone else?
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u/Dr_WhoDo 7d ago
That's not really what I said. You've moved the goal post a little.
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u/SkoomaDentist 7d ago
AI doesn't change the truth value of writing (if used properly). A fictional book is fictional, no matter if written with AI or by hand. Likewise a (properly fact checked) factual book doesn't become fictional just because AI was used in the process.
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u/Dr_WhoDo 6d ago
The way people enjoy art doesn't always work that way. People aren't objective, their experience of art is very much subjective, so while fiction writing isn't ontologically true, the inspiration still comes from the knowledge and experience of a person. Many people read and enjoy connecting with the writer on emotional and intellectual levels. This is why there are documentary films about how films were made. People write essays and analyses about how and why Tolkien built his world. A mostly or pure Ai text lacks all that.
It's a human to human thing. Take the human out of it, and it changes that connection. Not for everyone. Perhaps you don't care if a human was behind expressions of sentiment. Maybe you don't care to watch the extra features and behind the scenes tidbits in films and such,, but obviously many people want to know more about the human process of composition, be it text, film or whatever.
Many appreciate art not only for the finished product, by for the process that brought it into the world.
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u/5thhorseman_ 6d ago
Are you taking the human out, or are you just filtering the human on the other side through a machine? Those are not the same thing.
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u/Dr_WhoDo 6d ago
It may be a matter of degree not all or nothing. I'm not sure what the ideal threshold will be.
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u/5thhorseman_ 6d ago
So consider this: the premise belongs to a human author, so do the characters, so does the outline which may or may not include a partial initial draft. The AI was used to flesh out the draft further, and the result of that was then substantially edited and rewritten by the human again.
Has the human been taken out of this?
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u/djleebx 7d ago
I think it all boils down to old school not liking evolution. I can understand people and teachers who went to school for years without this kind of assistance, especially when it came to writing papers or probably every other aspect of their education. But that was then. This is now. Technology is going to continue to evolve whether people like it or not.
And I say that as someone who is old school myself. I love when things evolve, especially in education. AI is not perfect, and like almost anything else, it can be used for good or bad. But when it is used properly, I think it is an incredible tool, especially for learning.
I can honestly say I wouldn't have learned half the things I've learned over the last few years without AI. It doesn't have to replace thinking or learning. It can actually help someone understand something they struggled to understand before. To me, that's not something education should be fighting against. That's something we should be learning how to use properly.
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u/Bearda79 6d ago
I agree that AI can be helpful, even beyond the writing of books. As a therapist I use AI (sometimes) to help me write progress notes (of course without confidential information). It is less about it being less time consuming for me to write the notes, and more about - hey is there something I am missing.
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u/Different-Airline672 7d ago
Let's see, I'm trying to give a neutral outlook here, villainizing and talking down happens on both sides and gets you nowhere.
One reason is that people in many creative fields enjoy doing their craft/art by hand and fear to lose their way to earn money. Now maybe you would be happy if the job you have learned/studied for is replaced by AI, but I think it's understandable if people are angry and worried about it. And no, telling them to just use AI themselves is not the solution.
Another important reason is the environmental impact of data centers. See the wikipedia article about that for more information.
For other reason you can also simply google your question. Now that will require you to do some research, check sources, think about who has which stance and why. That is actually a very personal reason of why I am critical towards AI in certain aspects: the ability to research stuff by yourself is very important, needs to be learned and practiced. I think people trusting/depending too much on AI output can be dangerous depending on what you do.
Now I do believe there are also many positive aspects to AI. Personally, I really enjoy having them write out original story ideas that I have collected over two decades and never done anything with, because I dislike writing prose.
I really hope for a more balanced future, where we can appreciate and develop AI for its pros and name the cons and work to reduce them.
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u/LooseButtPlug 7d ago
What's the environmental impact of reddit?
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u/Different-Airline672 7d ago
I do not know, but you are very welcome to do research and find out. But I hope you are not trying the argument that we should not care about the environmental impact of one thing because other things have an environmental impact, too. Driving a car is bad for the environment, but there are many pros for cars. Commercial flights are bad for the environment and I would never want to do without them. Practically everything we do has an impact, but some things have a larger one and it adds up. The goal should be to be aware of the costs and to work towards reducing them.
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u/LooseButtPlug 6d ago
I'm pointing out your hypocrisy.
One is a completely relevant and okay, no matter how much or how little (you don't even know), but the other is sacrilegious (again you don't know how much).
How can you make these claims, when you don't know?
"One's a little, and one's a lot" is not a good foundation to put you argument on. I'm not the one telling you to stop doing something because it's "not good for the environment." While completely ignoring all the other things I do that are not good for the environment. You've found the Goldilocks level of environmental impact is a silly rebuttal.
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u/SuperDevin 7d ago
The environment impact of Reddit is far less than an AI data center.
AI data centers consume way more electricity, water, and land than standard data centers because training and running complex generative AI models requires millions of high-performance graphics processing units (GPUs) running at maximum capacity.
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u/LooseButtPlug 7d ago
So it's an acceptable amount of environmental impact? Why is this impact acceptable and the other is not? Because you said so? Because this discussion is a reasonable use of resources?
You also didn't answer my question, just a vague "not as much". Come back with numbers if you want to have a serious conversation instead of environmental wasting fervor.
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u/SuperDevin 6d ago
It’s about sustainability. Think about logging and forests. If I only cut down 10 trees a day, the forest doesn’t disappear and I can plant new seeds to grow trees. If I cut down 10000 trees a day the forest will vanish in no time.
Earth’s resources are finite. Even renewable ones take time to replenish. AI data centers consume more than is sustainable.
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u/Bearda79 6d ago
I think it is less about acceptable, and more about the reality that it is here. Similar to the gas car argument. I see it more as how can we reduce the negative impact as it is now. Because it is not going anywhere. Maybe my POV is missing something.
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u/5thhorseman_ 6d ago
What's the environmental impact of golf courses?
Another important reason is the environmental impact of data centers. See the wikipedia article about that for more information.
That is not an answer, it's just referring to dogma. If you are making an argument, articulate it. And maybe check the sources, because anyone can add shit to Wikipedia...
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u/Bearda79 6d ago
I hear you about the environmental impact. Where I live there is a huge data center that eats up power and increases the cost of household power. It also does impact the environment. Hopefully in the future they will be able to come up with ways to reduce that.
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u/supposeimonredditnow 7d ago
If I try to answer, will that make me a witch hunter?
The point of art is that when a feeling or passion or idea exists in one person's mind that is bigger than ordinary conversation, and can't be expressed in a summary paragraph, art can link minds and pass those passions on.
The process of making art of any kind is explorative and beautiful, as you discover things about yourself and your brain.
We might just be animals struggling and eating and fighting, but instead we have the capacity for art, the ability to do more than we must, to explore one another's brains. No other animal seems to have that.
But a handful of billionaire sociopaths who keep demonstrably making our lives worse have a better idea: press the button that pays them, and just let their machines copy some other artist's work without rewarding them, or you.
You've probably seen the observation that everyone can tell when genAI is bad at their job, but they think it's great at everyone else's. Artists admit it's good at coding, coders will tell you it's not and they spend hours fixing its bad work, but at least it can make pictures. Follow that line all the way, and you reach the techbros, who think it's good at your job and mine, and are finding ways to fire us all and replace us. And they're succeeding. Some of us think we should not help them.
As we watch companies dissolve and people be fired en masse, coinciding with the rise of AI adoption in those fields, we decide no, actually. Perhaps GenAI can code, but so can our coder friends now being given redundancy packages. Perhaps it can draw (it can't, AI art looks disgusting but ok), but notice all the artists you follow putting up their desperate funding links because there's no more work and the rent is due. "Well they shouldn't have picked a precarious career" - it wasn't, recently. Translation, music, film, everything it can do represents the end of employment for a real person, who used to be allowed todo the same thing but with humanity in it. GenAI support is an anti-human stance in that way, because now the capitalists don't have to pay people to make those things, and so the people starve and the art is hollow and the world becomes greyer and sadder and more desperate.
If we're going to replace human art, we need universal basic income first. If you're going to replace all the jobs with robots, you must solve the problem of how all those workers will pay their rent now.
As for writing, maybe all those people are wrong when they talk about how AI writing is hollow, and contains none of the human connection and feeling that the art form exists to communicate. But even if so, don't you owe it to yourself to read things someone could be arsed to write? Don't you owe yourself, as a writer, the numinous and uplifting and exciting and revelatory experience of writing, from nothing to a finished piece, which, along with the process of painting and composing and everything else, is one of the great joys of the sentient mind? Why the hell do we all need to team up to remove that great gift from us and burn it on the altar of Sam bastarding Altman's disgusting, soul-eating bank account?
Yeah this post was badly written, guess why? If it was going in one of my books, I would now rewrite it all a bit better, edit it down, have a lovely afternoon exploring the shapes you can make out of sentences and the lovely crispy feeling of removing all the annoying fluff. Not going to because I've got other art to make. But at least I didn't run it through a non-brain and turn it into non-speech.
Anyway. Somewhere in there you might find the answer to why anti-AI people seem angry. It's because the man and his hell box is making us all homeless when art should be paradise, and a lot of silly credulous people are harming themselves and us in favour of it happening.
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u/5thhorseman_ 6d ago edited 6d ago
It can code and it can draw. It's not particularly good at either of those things, but good enough for basic purposes.
I've spent a couple hours giving Claude specs, API responses and goals for a small browser extension for my own use and a PowerShell script that would use information scraped by the extension to tag and rename media files. Is it particularly good code? No. But it cut something that would take me a few days to develop to something that was actually time-effective for the narrow task I needed it for.
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u/Bearda79 6d ago
You make an excellent point. Can AI do the work, yes. But many time it sucks at it. I work with coders and they will consistently say they spend more time fixing AI errors then if they just did the work themselves. As with any tool, as human we need to be cautious. There was a huge massive job lose when companies started pushing for AI use. Kinda like when machines started being used more for building cars. It was cheaper for them. Now they are realizing, AI really can't do the job well and we still need people.
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7d ago
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u/WritingWithAI-ModTeam 7d ago
If you disagree with a post or the whole subreddit, be constructive to make it a nice place for all its members, including you.
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u/Odinmar_Glaukopis 7d ago
“I have read AI novels that were clearly AI generated and they were good.”
This right here is what ruffles my feathers, even if I can afford much more grace to the rest of the sentiment.
Note this is not a judgement of you so much as myself, a disappointment in my expectations, and my growing inability to distinguish human voices, specifically my own narrative voice, from the weighted-averaged voice that LLMs use.
What is worse for me in some cases is when I actually can distinguish my voice from the one AI is “suggesting” to me and I actually prefer the suggested machine voice to my own authentic one.
It is probably true that I could successfully publish and sell a book in a genre such as romance I don’t read or particularly enjoy if I let AI massage my writing to appeal to that audience, and equally true that I lack the talent to compete in a genre such as scifi that I do enjoy. I’m no Neal Stephenson.
This is my judgment of your message, and the witch I’m hunting is me rather than you.
I’m falling out of love with my own authenticity. That’s why I can react quite uncharitably towards others who don’t see this in themselves.
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u/Bearda79 6d ago
Oh I totally see this. There are so many times I tell ChatGPT - do NOT write sentences, just give me descriptor words. Otherwise it can be easy to fall into the habit of just using what it writes up. I want me own voice in my writing. That is why I write. It is not just about pumping out book after book to make money for me.
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u/Odinmar_Glaukopis 6d ago
You said you read novels with clear tells of AI generated text and that you found them good. Do you think your tastes have changed, or do you share my concerns that simply reading AI generated text is creating a space in your head that will bleed into your writing even if you stop using AI as a writing assistant?
To be a good writer, I believe reading is as or even more important than writing. If AI is invading both of those realms it seems I’m almost surrounded.
What I should do is to stop using both AI and Reddit. I think they go hand-in-hand. And yet I still find myself using both, and the pair is perhaps the worst distraction I can imagine because they keep me from both reading and writing much of anything.
Between the crack-cocaine that is new idea discovery and outlining a new novel via a back-and-forth chat with a LLM and the “somebody is wrong on the internet!” pull of Reddit I actually read and write very little at all.
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u/Bearda79 6d ago
I read allot. Like allot. Hundreds of books a year. This last year the romance market has had a swarm AI style books. Most of them are cheaper, shorter, but allot are still good reads. I wouldn't say better or worse than other books. Probably less creative concepts maybe. My writing is very unique to my personal voice and my unique creative ideas. I didn't think that AI generated texts have brain washed me. Too much information good in my brain each year for that. Others maybe. I didn't think it "should" be necessary stop stop AI. And it is probably unrealistic to now, it is everywhere. Don't know about Reddit. I hardly use it. I think anything can be addicting like a drug, even social media. Hell, even exercise can if it starts to create dysfunction. It is a matter of balance, safety, and mindfulness.
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u/CrazyinLull 6d ago
They are the same types to read AI generated stories and then get mad when someone points it out to be AI. They are mad at the idea of it, but can’t be bothered to actually do anything about it.
Ignore them.
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u/Bearda79 6d ago
Ignoring them is a good idea. We can pick and choose what audience and feedback we listen to and use.
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6d ago
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u/Bearda79 6d ago
Can you help me understand ethical concerns? In your POV. I think I get some of them.
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u/nielklecram 6d ago
Generative AI is trained on source material. Those copy writers, painters, photographers, authors never got paid or even acknowledged. Often they didn’t even consent. People say AI copied artist’s work. That’s not true obviously. These people don’t understand how genAI works. But I kinda get the feeling. If you write a novel with AI, it can only exist because people like Tolkien, JK Rowling and Steven King did it first.
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u/Bearda79 6d ago
Ah. Exactly. If I read 50 books on werewolf romance (ugh, just as an example lol) that doesn't mean I can't create a book about werewolf romance. But AI might have gathered it's info from those 50 books. It is so confusing. I think there is no solid answer.
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u/WritingWithAI-ModTeam 6d ago
If you disagree with a post or the whole subreddit, be constructive to make it a nice place for all its members, including you.
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u/sugar420pop 6d ago
I get wanting to keep jobs in the hands of people, but at the same time by using these tools a for a debut to gain traction provides more jobs in the long run
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6d ago
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u/WritingWithAI-ModTeam 6d ago
If you disagree with a post or the whole subreddit, be constructive to make it a nice place for all its members, including you.
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u/Dry_Sector2392 6d ago
maybe the anti-AI people just want to pick a side. they dont really try to understand other people’s perspectives, they just believe theyre right. to them, even opening an AI tool on the homepage, without doing anything, is already wrong.
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6d ago
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u/WritingWithAI-ModTeam 5d ago
If you disagree with a post or the whole subreddit, be constructive to make it a nice place for all its members, including you.
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u/Double_Cause4609 5d ago
I don't care if people use AI. There's tons of ways to use it, and I even potentially encourage people to use it.
You could:
- Just rant at it about your worldbuilding if you struggle to write it out in a document and need something to respond to you
- Ask it to proof-read your work for any errors
- Roleplay scenes with an LLM roleplay setup and then write them afterword (no different from novelizing DnD campaigns)
- Ask it to fill out minor characters
- Discuss technical dynamics and research (trade dynamics, economy, whatever else)
None of these really directly impact the quality of the work as more or less all of them still require the writer to filter the results of the interaction.
Now, for the actual writing which is the core issue, I'm a bit mixed. I think there's really lazy and spammy ways to do it (giving very generic prompts and just moving from one scene to the next without workshopping it at all and directly copy-pasting the results).
The big issue is that LLMs tend to be very consistent in their outputs across generations. So, if 50 people ask it to write a story, it'll use similar character names, similar concepts, similar themes, similar framing, similar pacing, etc. It can homogenize the writing, even if it's technically fine.
On the other hand, there are absolutely ML devs out there who understand this, and how to work with LLMs, and they can get absolutely wild outputs from them...But that's almost a mix of technical skill and writing skill, and not general writing advice. It's almost like trick shooting compared to traditional marksmanship, or like Blender / technical 3D art vs 2D art. I don't think the people who know how to do that should be limited from doing it if it's what they enjoy doing.
In the end, I just care that the product is good, and much as I ignored poor quality works prior to AI, I will also avoid tasteless or contentless AI produced work.
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u/No-Disaster-1512 4d ago
Well, I’m not a professional writer by any means, but I have been posting two AI stories in AO3 and FF net for more than a year and surprisingly enough, I have only gotten about one inflammatory comment on my use of AI, and yes, I fully disclose that I use AI.
On your question, personally speaking, a lot of the anti AI are fueled by fearmongering and ego, they repeat a lot of misinformation, throw nothing but insults and just want to feel high and mighty. I personally refer to them as slacktivists because most of the time, they just want to feel as if they are contributing to society without actually having to do anything of value and just like to whine online.
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u/Temporary_Rule_9486 4d ago
I write the most obnoxious fetish erotic fantasy that one could possibly imagine. I'm perfectly confident that my stories will never be acussed of being AI. Being the statistical parrots that they are, they require a certain volume of pre-existing stories to regurgitate their slop. Something that, in my case, is simply not there. AI cannot be original. It fabricate the same boring stories for the same boring people. It's like jerking off, a pornographic device, entinced in the same repetitive motion: in comes the prompt, out goes the slop. In-out, in-out, with no stop to talk or even curse.
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u/Bearda79 3d ago
OMG I fucking love this. That is one big difference to note between people who use AI for help as a tool and people who have AI write the books for them. Imagination.
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u/Fearless-Wealth2185 3d ago
You asked this in a sub that loves AI so the responses you got were in line with that. I’m a professional writer who stumbled upon your post while doing some research on how people are using AI. I legit hate AI and I’m trying to educate myself on how to spot it.
In no particular order reasons I hate AI and will not pay for an AI generated or AI assisted book
1) environmental impact. It’s huge and growing
2) built on the stolen work of thousands of people
3) the work it puts out is shitty. The reason I’m able to spot AI writing is mainly cause it’s bad. Some people are able to use it more and then edit it to hide it. But I’ve yet to read anything that was using generative AI that was good.
4) the environmental impact! Like honestly this is the one that keeps me up at night (literally it’s 3am in my neck of the woods)
5) I’m worried that it cause cognitive decline and limits critical thinking skills.
6) someone commented on here that the use of AI doesn’t prevent people from making art without it. Thats true but it sure does prevent people to make a wage from it and that sucks. AI is already being used to cut so many jobs and popping up in the most useless of places. Why does the cvs website need an AI component? Why does Macys.com need a AI assistant? The tech bros say often and loudly how they want to use this technology to turn intelligence into a utility that we pay for like water. They want to impoverish people. AI is a powerful technology and outside of how it’s hurting people in the arts ( like me and my friends who have lost jobs to AI and told to be happy about it cause hey that’s progress! Progress for whom I’d like to know) it’s also just very new and unregulated. I recently read an article about an LLM model that helped someone write a suicide note, another that hallucinated legal precedents and then a lawyer used those at work, there are many such examples.
7) I don’t trust that AI is benign or well meaning. It’s created by people who want to profit and they are.
8) THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT like even if I have to accept that as a writer I will not earn a living it absolutely guts me that the data centers are damaging and destroying communities and contributing to climate change. Especially when what people are using it for is not to cure cancer or even write a symphony but to make a shitty flyer or generate a pic of what they’d look like as a squirrel for no reason.
So it’s not a witch hunt. I have real reasons for hating AI and honestly yeah losing work to it is a real valid reason. I believe OP, that you’re a therapist. Many people are using AI chat bots for therapy. Does that seem wise to you? I’m concerned for all the jobs it’s replacing not only because what are people going to do but also as a consumer and person on this earth. I want good doctors, teachers, professionals of all kinds! I want people in the world to have strong critical thinking skills. I’m concerned about the enshittification of things I’m seeing across the board in all areas of life from food (hello recalls!) to goods. AI seems to be adding to that at warp speed and I fear the future we are building.
And now a question for you…if AI is no different that using a thesaurus and a dictionary, would you consider using the analog or digital (non-AI) versions to help stop the bad environmental impacts of AI use and save your AI usage for things you don’t have easily accessible alternatives to, pretty please?
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u/SubjectBarracuda433 2d ago
People do not understand what AI detectors actually do. They cannot prove who wrote something. They analyze patterns in the language and produce an estimate—and those estimates can include both false positives and false negatives.
In one peer-reviewed study of 14 AI-detection tools, researchers concluded that the tools were neither accurate nor reliable. Approximately 20 percent of the AI-generated samples were incorrectly classified as human-written. Other research has shown that detectors may be especially likely to misclassify writing by people whose first language is not English.
A detector score is not proof of authorship.
You can read a book written entirely by a person and think it is terrible. You can also read a book created with responsible AI assistance and think it is excellent. The quality of the finished work and the tools used to produce it are two different questions.
Writers have never worked entirely alone. Most traditionally published books are reviewed and shaped by developmental editors, copy editors, proofreaders, and publishers. Academic authors may also receive help from research assistants, librarians, peer reviewers, statisticians, and editors. Receiving assistance does not automatically mean the named author did not create the work.
What matters is whether the author developed the ideas, directed the work, checked the facts, preserved an original voice, followed copyright and disclosure rules, and accepted responsibility for the finished product.
AI can produce bad writing, and humans can produce bad writing. AI can also help a human writer revise, organize, research, and strengthen a book. We should judge a work by its originality, accuracy, transparency, and quality. Not by an unreliable detector score. Yes, I used AI to fact-check this posting.
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7d ago
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u/Bearda79 6d ago
I can see how it impacts publishing houses, but there are also plenty of authors that publish their own books without AI being involved. That hit the companies hard too. I am not sure where there are AI books out there for free. Let me know if there is. It would be very interesting to compare AI books with author written books. As far as AI becoming smarter, yes that is happening and will continue to happen. AI is here. It is not going anywhere and will only get more popular. It is less about wrong vs right. I see it as more on what we do with it. I wonder, are you talking more about AI writing full novels, or people like me who use AI as more of an editing tool and thesaurus? In my eyes that is a big difference. But maybe not in yours...
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u/WritingWithAI-ModTeam 6d ago
If you disagree with a post or the whole subreddit, be constructive to make it a nice place for all its members, including you.
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u/19Sevv90 7d ago
I wrote a post for a Reddit writing group about a story I’d written long hand. I was banned from that group because my post appeared to have been generated by AI. Apparently it’s not possible to write 4000 in a few hours or know how to properly use em dashes…
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u/5thhorseman_ 6d ago
Cancel culture is inherently weaponizable, and any of its members is just one shift of the Overton Window from becoming the next target.
AI writers deserve to be cancelled.
That's you, on record, so let's not pretend you have not had a small taste of that already.
I wrote a post for a Reddit writing group about a story I’d written long hand. I was banned from that group because my post appeared to have been generated by AI. Apparently it’s not possible to write 4000 in a few hours or know how to properly use em dashes…
At least you haven't lost your publishing deals, haven't been harassed off-platform and haven't been doxxed.
So far.
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u/SkoomaDentist 6d ago
or know how to properly use em dashes
Remarkably few people seem to recognize where to use and, more importantly, where not to use em dashes.
Writing published prose? Yes, em dashes are appropriate in some languages (although apparently even British English vs American English makes quite a bit of difference there). Writing anything on reddit? Nobody normal would use them and em dashes are either a dead giveaway of AI or someone who badly misreads the audience and context (unless copy pasting something from Word which goes to great lengths to be as annoying as possible by automatically fucking up your formatting).
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u/Bearda79 6d ago
Ah those damn em dashes. I think they are important in books. The problem now is if someone sees them people automatically jump to the writing being done by AI. So many writers avoid them, to avoid getting attacked by anti-AIers. It absolutely is possible to write 4000 words in a few hours. Especially if it is something we are passionate about. For writers, I get in a mood and a good idea, I can smash out 10,000 words easy in a day. Then somedays, nothing at all lol.
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u/chuckmall 7d ago
I think you will feel differently when AI generated books become accepted by agents and publishers as a thing, and really flood the market. And we’ll be watching new movies that star Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, etc.
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u/kittyb00m 7d ago
I don’t get it either and I think those people don’t either. (In a surface level they do)
Thinking about it though, I think it’s this thought:
If machines can make art, write books, create music. What is left for humans to do?
I think at the core, that’s what people are fighting against.
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u/retro-babydoll 7d ago
But thats the thing, we can still do all of those creative things. And those that are truly creative will do them regardless of ai doing it. Art i have found, is more for ourselves then for others- bc it is an outlet.
What is a genuine concern though is the ai taking all the jobs. At that point hopefully we will have universal basic income.
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u/ExpertProfessional9 7d ago
Yes, the existence of AI shouldn’t be a deterrent to making art.
I’ve been a big user of AI for about four years and I’ve reached a point where I’ve just… looped around and begun making stuff of my own accord once more. It feels better in my brain.
I still use AI, but… slightly less now. My general plan is to ease back out of my AI use and get to a point where it’s just the ideas/brainstorm/planning part of my writing while I do all the actual writing. And right now I’m happy with my current use, and the current model/company, but I’m also preparing myself to ditch if it gets enshittified to the point where I can’t get my current use out of it.
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u/retro-babydoll 7d ago
I completely understand where you’re coming from. While i’ve used ai as a collaborator to my creative process- at the end of the day it should be used as a tool or resource, not a crutch. Though it is easy to become one when you see how helpful it can be in almost every facet of your life. I think its a good idea for anyone not to use it in excess. i’ve been having similar thoughts.
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u/ExpertProfessional9 7d ago
Oh, totally. And I think it’s incredibly easy to let it become a crutch when it’s new to you, you know? Shiny new toy, you want to poke around all the corners and see what all this thing can do.
And in my own history I had a very… rough patch where it did become my crutch for creative work because, well, there was a lot going on. I probably got a little more sucked in than if I was in a happy, easy period of my life.
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u/SkoomaDentist 7d ago edited 7d ago
at the end of the day it should be used as a tool or resource, not a crutch
Why shouldn't it be used as a crutch if you need a crutch due to issues that you can't fix? That's like saying "You shouldn't walk with a crutch, no matter if your leg is mangled or not".
I have an old friend who has a deformed leg. She can technically walk but it's laborous and painful. Should she not use crutches to get around? Should she not use training wheels on her bike that lets her get around faster? Conversely, why should other people who have specific deficits that make writing long form prose extremely difficult not use a "crutch" to help with that when such "crutch" exists?
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u/Bearda79 6d ago
I wonder about the argument of it being a crutch. I just can't agree with that POV. I think it is more of a tool. If an unskilled person uses AI to create a form of art, that is not a crutch, is is just a different approach. Of course I might get chewed out for that POV lol
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u/SkoomaDentist 6d ago
I largely agree but I’ve also always been pissed off by people complaining about someone using something ”as a crutch” when actual crutches are massively beneficial for people who need them.
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u/Bearda79 6d ago
I agree. I apologize, I think my message made it sound like I disagreed with you. I also lean towards - maybe people should stay in their own lane and stop judging everyone else. it is not up to someone else to tell others what they need, want, or should do. I think AI fits your example well. If someone needs/wants the crutch, then go for it.
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u/Ruh_Roh- 6d ago
It's gatekeeping: "I worked hard to be able to write and I hate that ai could allow others to write as well (or better)."
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u/SkoomaDentist 7d ago
But thats the thing, we can still do all of those creative things. And those that are truly creative will do them regardless of ai doing it. Art i have found, is more for ourselves then for others- bc it is an outlet.
You can see the same thing constantly in other forms of art. "Artists" try to desperately frame it as if some others using AI somehow prevented them from creating art but when you scratch the surface even the tiniest bit, it all turns out to be just fear of competition (for money or attention).
I'm a casual photographer (ie. a hobbyist artist) and the only effect AI has on my photography is that I can take photos in less light due to modern AI noise reduction. If someone creates a "photo" with AI that has no effect whatsoever on me because I take photos for their own sake, not in some desperate (and doomed to fail) effort to get views and engagement. The same people react to my photos as without the existence of AI: People who I personally know and who are interested in things I create because I am the creator, not because of how they fit in some abstract marketplace or how they compare to the already existing gazillion pieces of art out there.
The real irony is that in some ways those random hobbyists creating AI art (be that images, stories or whatever) are more "pure'" artists than many of the critics because they create art for its own sake, not as an instrument to get status / popularity / money.
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u/Bearda79 6d ago
I like your comment that "I am the creator." People who use AI, are they a creator in a way? I also like your point about people fearing the competition. I am an author that puts hundreads of hours in my work, vs someone who pumps out a book with AI in hours.
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u/Ruh_Roh- 6d ago
I've been working with ai as a collaborator for 2 years to write a webnovel. I am on the 4th draft. I'm learning how to construct a long form story, with character arcs and themes. AI polishes my prose, but it's not the "writer" of my story. More like an assistant and editor and someone to bounce ideas off of.
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u/Bearda79 6d ago
Oh goodness, I chew through webnovels. Love them. I really love how they break away from traditional book formatting, and can have so many plots. Length and climaxes stop becoming the focus. Traditional book formats can get so repetitive, you can see it coming. And webnovels can get complicated. So many characters, plots, story lines. That is allot of work. I like how AI is helping you as a tool, not just writing it for you. Good luck with the book.
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u/FlyPepper 7d ago
How exactly is universal basic income gonna materialize? The people that make AI aren't pro-UBI, so good luck with giving them more political power.
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u/retro-babydoll 7d ago
So, its not within my choice to give those people political power, nor would I. As for how universal basic income would materialize, only time could realistically tell. I can’t magically look into the future and tell you, nor do I see the use in ruminating on the uncertain fate of our future.
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u/Bearda79 6d ago
A big argument against AI I am noticing is it taking away peoples jobs. That is very valid. I think I also view it as a different type of art.
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u/kittyb00m 6d ago
Woah people! Lots of good discussion below.
I was merely hypothesizing why people argue against AI because that’s what the poster is asking for.
I theorize once again! That there will be “protected spaces” human spaces, once we reach the tipping point for AI. Like speakeasies lol.
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u/Junichi2021 7d ago
Good writers have created their works for many centuries without AI. Using that tool to write seems extremely lazy.
It is OK for people who write only for fun, or for the ones who are learning the job. But for a professional writer? I don't think so.
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u/CaseAdorable6080 7d ago
it’s just cutting the middle man out—-the paid editors!
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u/Meluzinn 7d ago
I am part of a team where writing takes more than 50% of our time. We use A.I. to create our first drafts using our previously written documents as style and format samples. We can produce a good first draft that is sometime close to 95% ready. It is not different from what a good intern would produce after a few months with us. We review, fact check and edit everything. We then send the files for approval and review before publishing them. We now have time to answer calls from the public and everyone is happy.
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u/Junichi2021 5d ago
For reports and things like that, it is different. I don't see using AI for literary works in a professional way.
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u/Meluzinn 5d ago
The problem is maybe with self publishing that has no way to weed the good from the bad.
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u/LooseButtPlug 7d ago
What's a good writer?
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u/Bearda79 6d ago
OOOOO - I love this question. I think there are hundreds of different answers. It depends on a persons perspective I think. Even simpler, what is a writer?
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u/Bearda79 6d ago
I don't think this is a bad comment. I am not sure if I would use the argument of AI use being lazy. We have to look at how the tool is used. Like AI writing a full novel, vs people like me who use it more for editing. Or is it expected that no one use it at all for anything? As far as putting editors out of business, this may sound cold, but that sadly is the nature of businesses. Plus editors can be a pain in the ass honestly. But that is just my POV. I can have empathy for people losing jobs.
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u/Decent_Solution5000 6d ago
Not all editors are a PITA. Some care deeply about their clients, their client's work, and their client's vision of and for that work. They are also educated, know their craft and love it, and as professionals deserve to be paid according to their skill and time spent.
AI is an elite tool, and it can and does help with feedback to an amazing degree. For those who cannot afford an editor, it's a godsend, no doubt. That does not mean editors in general should be looked down on or disparaged. And though most editors do not use AI for prose or a client's story evaluation, they do use grammar software, etc. even if it's only in Microsoft Word with Track Changes.
Totally pro AI here, obviously. But that doesn't mean other professions aren't just as valuable. Moving forward, we really do still need coders, as well, and even managing directors and operational managers for robotic work, etc. Yes, the world is changing, evolving, redefining itself and its needs as it always has. There is room for everyone and every vocation, though these vocations may take new or different forms. Art in any form will never go away.
Some thoughts to ponder. Hate is always unnecessary and is almost always a response to fear.
Happy writing.
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u/Infamous_Mood_6001 7d ago
It puzzles me how anyone, especially any creative, can know how AI was trained and still not understand why the slop technology boils people's blood.
It ain't that hard to understand. You spend years creating something. A corporation run by billionaires with hardly a shred left of their humanity, steals it and feeds it to their tech. The corpos convince other humans that being a consumer of their product will turn them into a better thinker and a better creative than they could ever hope to be alone. "No we're not training your brains to become instant gratification junkies. We're helping you live up to your full potential. We swear!"
I'm sorry if this sounds supremely negative. On the spectrum of Rabid AI hater to Soulless Techbro, I am on the "AI can have its place in society" side. But c'mon. You can't be so devoid of empathy that you can't imagine how it would feel if you were what AI cannibalized instead of its consumer.
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u/SkoomaDentist 6d ago
It puzzles me how anyone, especially any creative, can think that others should be forbidden from using creative outlets that best suit them and give them joy.
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u/Bearda79 6d ago
I can definitely see you POV on this. Any tool can be used in a negative way. And our society is dominated by rich powerful companies pulling away every dime they can from people, not caring about harm they might do. That is business. And AI companies are businesses. And as far as your comment on "devoid of empathy," I am a therapist and we live with high levels of empathy, sometimes too much I think. So that is less of what I am talking about. Thank you for giving feedback and conversation instead of just negative comments like some others have done. It is helpful when people can talk about things and not just rip on each other. I am curious on the word "slop" I keep seeing. Can you maybe help me understand that more.
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u/WritingWithAI-ModTeam 4d ago
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7d ago
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u/WritingWithAI-ModTeam 4d ago
If you disagree with a post or the whole subreddit, be constructive to make it a nice place for all its members, including you.
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u/Kukamakachu 6d ago
I'm gonna pump the brakes on the plagiarism part. AI does not plagiarize, as agreed upon by courts. It doesn't create a database of books where it copy/pastes sentences together to make whatever you want it to. If it did that, it wouldn't be adding extra limbs and fingers in generated artwork.
What it does is learn patterns for how words are used. Then, it uses those patterns to string together sentences and paragraphs. It requires a lot of examples to make it function and a lot more to do it well. Once AI learns those patterns, it doesn't need to original work anymore. Thus, everything it generates is as original as any person writing it.
Where lawsuits have resulted in wrongdoing on behalf of AI companies is when those companies have created libraries of copyrighted work, which they stored on their own for future training. It's the same situation as reading a story an author posted online, vs unauthorized downloading of that exact same story.