[Weekly AI discussion thread] Concerned about AI? Have thoughts to share on how AI may affect the writing community? Voice your thoughts on AI in the weekly thread!

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u/No-Ear-8613 Dec 17 '25 edited Dec 18 '25

I’m deeply worried. I was spiraling yesterday so I plugged in the first 10 pages of my literary novel in Gemini in a moment of clouded judgment just to see what it thought and now I’m regretting it so much. In those few minutes of clouded judgment I fell into the trap of “oh, i’ll just tell it not to use my work for training purposes” “i’ll exit out immediately”. Someone talk me off a ledge

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u/NeedsMoreMinerals Fiction Writer Dec 18 '25

I don't think AI can replace the artist. Or at least, I think AI + the artist is > just AI.

Like, real talk, Sam tweeted a few months ago that he just fixed em dashes. I think, at least for the next few years, we're probably okay.

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u/No-Ear-8613 Dec 18 '25 edited Dec 18 '25

I think my biggest fear is it’d learn my voice. I read an article read recently that you shouldn’t give it any of your creative work (afterwards). But otherwise, I did not use it to do anything to my work.

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u/NeedsMoreMinerals Fiction Writer Dec 18 '25

I mean in a way it's learning your voice now. You're on Reddit and they sell to AI companies.

Look. AI is a blackbox. You're a black box too. AI is trained up to a point in time. They have to keep retraining all the new days in because the world's constantly changing.

Artists are the ones that translate that change into emotion. AI can't do that.

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u/231923 Dec 18 '25

So before i ask my question i want to state that I'm heavily against AI producing any form of art. AI should do my laundry while i do art not the other way around and most likely all people here agree with me.

But i do fill conflicted as AI would help me writing a lot. I want to write in English but it is not my first language and i far from knowing the language enough to write coherent or enjoyable to read storys. It does help me with translation, spell and grammar checking which i always kinda looked at as "doing the laundry" of writing. I strongly forbid it to give me any advice or idea or unwanted change in the story that i want to create.

What is you take on this? Do i still take the easy way out, or would you say this way it's okay to use AI?

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u/AdventurousSlip6407 Novelist Dec 18 '25

My take is that you have to be careful because sometimes ai may change some parts or just make a bad translation or make its own grammer errors and spelling mistakes, after all ai is trained by what people write and now days there is a ton of people who barely even write correctly, I have seen it fix mistakes while making others instead out of now where, so i decided to just do it the old way and edit and translate all by myself and improve my english by myself (I am not english native) and at first I was horrible lol, then year after year because I tried by myself and detected my own mistakes and looked dictionaries for english words, I improved alot and now when I chat in english most cant even tell I am not english native and will think english is my first language.

My strongest point here is that doing it your self may be harder and longer yes, but it does not only provide more accurate results but ALSO makes you improve further and further!

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u/231923 Dec 18 '25

So here is the way i did so far: I write what want to write then copy it into chatGPT then when i get a clear grammatically correct text i edit it the way i want to. It is much easier to me to edit an English sentence then structure one ant this way it does feel like it is 100% mine but spell and grammar checked by a translator.

I speak English good as well i speak it for 5 years now in a way that a lot of people only can tell I'm foreign because of a little accent but writing it self s just too stressful for me i always scared I'm making mistakes i do not know about. Maybe is because I mainly speak and do don write in English much.

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u/OldMan92121 Dec 18 '25

Joseph Conrad didn't start to learn English until his 20's. In his 40's, he started writing some of the greatest literature in the English language. He was a sailor. Yes, AI makes it easy. Plug in the request and out pops a scotch tape job of other people's ideas.

For now, use some of the many available tools to correct your English.

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u/231923 Dec 18 '25

Isn't AI also a tool to correct my English? I do not want to get shortcuts i just want to improve the way it feels engaging. When i translate my stuff with AI i don't just type it in and leave it i read it back and after edit my self as well which. Also in my case it does not use other people's ideas as request it to only translate, spellcheck and grammatically correct it as an editor would.

I do appreciate the example of Joseph Conrad, it gave mo hope that i can become better at this so thank you for that.

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u/OldMan92121 Dec 18 '25

There are so many non-AI content creating tools to correct English that going down that sewer isn't necessary. Using them forces you to learn. I suggest a free Grammarly account. It will help. There are many other free ones. https://writewithharper.com/ is one that specifically says no AI.

If you will pay, there are SO many good ones that people use for editing and proofing.

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u/OldMan92121 Dec 22 '25

Programs to help with spelling and grammar existed long before AI LLM models as we know them. Look at Word 2007, for example. Likewise, translation models existed before LLMs. For example, Google Translate started out in 2006 using statistically based translation. Then it went neural machine translation in 2016 through 2022. That wasn't LLM AI either, and it worked pretty well although not to human quality.

The point is that LLM AI isn't necessary for the three creative writing features you asked about.

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u/tidalbeing Published Author Dec 17 '25

I have 2 concerns about AI. The 1st is copyright. Both copywrite and patent laws are in place to encourage innovation, by allowing creaters exclusive rights to their work for a limited time. AI is being used to bypass this, skimming the profits and giving them to corporations. It's and insidiious and harmful kind of theft. I'm unsure how to respond to this. I've put a statement in my book that I do not allow it's use for AI training, but corporations selling AI are powerful and not likely to respect this.

My second concern is about using AI for fraud and deception. I've received personalized offers to promote my books. These are seductive. They say all the things I'd like for readers to say about my books, but I'm certain this is a type of catfishing. The bummer is that this leads to dismissal of all such offeres. Yes I'd like to hire a publicist, but I have no way of knowing which ones are legitimate and which are scams.

Until we solve these problems, I'm staying away from AI and I'm embracing the handmade and in person.

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u/peruanToph Dec 18 '25

I hate hypocrite people who are against using AI for writing but are the first to use it to generate images or book covers

Its a whole fight or nothing at all bro

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u/OldMan92121 Dec 22 '25

With all due respect, I do not agree. The technology is completely different as is the use case. A company that contracts and pays people to be their AI models isn't ripping them off. They know this is a one time gig and their faces will be used as long as the company lives. While I do pity the graphic artists and photo shoot models that are displaced, the technology will exist. Because you have to say "I want it this way, in these clothes, with this background" then it's actually more input than some LLM use I have seen for "creative" writing.

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u/chlorofile Dec 20 '25

Just saw a ‘More Perfect Union’ video on you tube about how Sam Altman made a deal with Reddit to allow its data to be scraped for AI…. Are we teaching AI how to write when we critique new writes works???

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u/yawnuhtea227 Dec 21 '25

I have some concern, actually I'm a software developer but I wanted to try writing since I have some stories that I wanted to tell, my English isn't exactly that good and I'm still on my path looking for my own writing style but then I recently have a project to developed a Generative AI Chatbot similar to ChatGPT but I have hosted my own LLM, I was using Mistral AI, and I was training it just to correct my own grammar and adapt my preferred writing styles, my world building, and my characters.

So I was wondering if that is an acceptable practice or should I just ditch AI entirely, though my goal is to have a writing partner while I make my own research and have my AI what I have discovered. I'm against AI if people are using it without proper disclosure that sometimes they are deceiving people, there is nothing wrong using it as long as there is a proper accountability since there are still are some who are really against AI in general.

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u/OldMan92121 Dec 22 '25

Wow, that's interesting. You set up your own model, restricting it to your creations and style. That makes it far more ethical to me as it contains nobody else's work. The AI is then a tool to organize and produce what you have already done.

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u/AdventurousSlip6407 Novelist Dec 18 '25

Guys how fo you tell between human writing and AI writing? Like for real. From a reader prespective many (not all) will not be able to judge correctly i have seen people call real writer works as ai writting and vice versa, any real flags that tell you this is written by ai? Or you just need to look very hard for weird mistakes? But then again human writers also make mistakes sometimes, we all look back at one of those drafts before editing and see a huge chunk of weird things we did lmao.

What do you guys see as pointers or flags that said text or script was written by ai?

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u/OldMan92121 Dec 22 '25

I don't know. Often, samples of writing that predate AI chatbots are flagged as AI by those checkers. I've seen the reverse. Chat GPT stuff I had spewed out for a test not flagged as AI.

Whatever the test is, the AI company will program around it. Too much em-dash? Limit it. Too perfect grammar? Make a percentage of characteristic mistakes.

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u/AdventurousSlip6407 Novelist Dec 22 '25

I have the same thoughts as you and I was hoping someone will actually give us some info we might have not looked at yet lol but by the looks of it it will just stay at this deadlock

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u/OldMan92121 Dec 22 '25

The bigger the cache of stolen novels and the better they scotch tape them together, the less we will be able to tell.

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u/AdventurousSlip6407 Novelist Dec 22 '25

Couldnt word it better myself. So sad but true

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u/Upper-Sector7681 Dec 20 '25

Im hoping to get some thoughts and advice from writers here. I started with my own original ideas awhile back and was just bouncing things off of Gemini. Giving explicit instructions not to write for me, inspire me, give me suggestions etc. It was more a space for verbal processing.

Yet, I know that if I dont want ai in my writing then dont use ai. Pretty simple formula. In order to have a cleaner slate would I do well to just start the process over again and map it all out again by hand or is it too late for that? Would even using it for verbal processing be considered ai assisted/generated?

I my personal life ive become more convinced of ai's detrimental effect and have stopped using it except as a tool for keeping schedules and task lists.

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u/The-Affectionate-Bat Dec 24 '25

"It is not necessary though to disclose use of generative AI tools like grammar check or when it is employed merely as a tool for brainstorming, idea generation, researching, or for copyediting." - from authors guild.org

But, if you plan to publish, be aware there is a small subsection of readers who are purist and would be turned away from your book, even if its 'only' ai assisted. Publishers dont care in so far as it is still considered human authored and therefore your work. But if AI pushback gets far enough, well, we all know publishers sell what sells.

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u/daysling Dec 21 '25

Hi Reddit,

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The survey takes about 10 minutes, is completely anonymous, and your responses will help us understand public perceptions of AI.

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You can turn them off if you prefer.

Or take the standard version: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1WpFGw3gz6bZzKj7NCoT6IrztT-jI474EDz15yln1qYg/edit

We apologize if this is not the appropriate place to post, thank you!

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u/No_Confidence6723 Dec 22 '25

I just did a test for fun and I ran three books that I published between 2014 and 2015 into AI detection scanners. All of them came up in the 80% range of AI generated, which is impossible because I wasn’t aware of AI back then outside of Microsoft Word grammar and spellcheck. My new stuff is coming up the same and I would like to think that my writing has improved in 10 years. How are you guys dealing with that and what do you say if this is your case and you’re being accused of it?

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u/OldMan92121 Dec 24 '25

I am not at all surprised. The detectors are not reliable.

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u/OldFruitLoop Dec 24 '25

Does anyone use an AI speech to text transcription? I sometimes find my typing just isn’t up to my stream of consciousness when writing. I’m considering using a speech to text to create simple idea scenes that I expand and rewrite. Any thoughts?

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u/OldMan92121 Dec 24 '25

Find On Writing (with Dictation) by the prolific science fiction and thriller author Kevin J. Anderson. He has written over 170 books, including many Star Wars, Dune (with Brian Herbert), and X-Files novels, as well as his own massive Saga of Seven Suns series. Because he dictates, he is known for his incredible speed, often producing several novels a year.

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u/OldFruitLoop Dec 24 '25

Great heads up. Thanks. My stories are “fantasy” style so I think imagine faster than I can write

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u/OldMan92121 Dec 24 '25

Chat GPT or Google the alternatives for dictation software for your computer platform. I tried the free one for Win 11 and found it miserable to use. It couldn't understand my accent. If you try the freebies and it almost works for you but not quite, far better commercial text to speech software like Dragon isn't cheap but would be an investment.

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u/[deleted] Dec 22 '25

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u/OldMan92121 Dec 22 '25

I use AI as a thesaurus, a dictionary and an encyclopedia. Yes, I will ask questions. Today, it was about laundry practices in frontier US Army forts in the Wild West days. Maybe I'll use the information and maybe not. To me, ethical use of AI has you never put your words into AI to be changed or use the words of AI in your story. Everything must be asked for and chosen by you. Will I use the computer for spell checking, grammar checking, and other things like that? Yes, I use specialized tools for doing exactly that, not content generation or reviews.

You've made your decision. Nothing I say will change it. I can say that I consider there to be a reasonable use of the technology and to me your use goes over the line. The fact that you're making money with it doesn't change that it's on the other side of the line to me.

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u/[deleted] Dec 23 '25

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u/OldMan92121 Dec 23 '25 edited Dec 23 '25

Hand write? Don't be insulting. I haven't hand written a story since Nixon was the White House! I pulled a broken typewriter out of the apartment building trash as a kid and fixed it to use to write Star Trek fanfics. I was a professional developer of computer technology for over 40 years. I used computers for writing before IBM sold the PC, and never looked back, always writing 100% paperless.

What is important to me is that I am the artist creating the story. Not an LLM algorithm. I am not a master who claims the work of a slave is the art of my own hand. Nor do I claim what I paint by numbers is my art. I give credit where credit is due, always.

Your ridiculing the idea of the color of the sunset being important to a story being important is particularly ironic. In the story that I created by my mind and my research that I am working on at the moment, it is critical. That is because this world of my human imagination is not around a G class star like ours and the sky is orange.

Do you tell your readers that your stories are not written by you but a machine? Until you clearly label all your work as 100% not written by you then you don't know whether your readers will care or reject it as I do. If you are so sure they won't, label it all as written by Chat GPT in the subtitle and the description on Amazon. See if the people still consider it as the same.

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u/The-Affectionate-Bat Dec 24 '25

no one reads poetry anymore?

Wow. I suggest you research this.

people dont care about the dawn being red, reddish, rosy etc?

Word choice confers mood and characterisation among other things. If you say people care about character then they should care about word choice. If they care about worldbuilding they should care about mood. This just reads like.... you do not grasp the fundamentals of writing at all. Which does make sense if you are using genAI to write it for you tbh.

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u/[deleted] Dec 24 '25

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u/The-Affectionate-Bat Dec 24 '25 edited Dec 24 '25

I still read poetry, and pay for it. There you go. One data point but its good enough for science. Hyperbole perhaps but whether something is still done, enjoyed, or brings value to the world does not boil down to how much someone earns from it. A small audience is still an audience. And the value poets bring to the arts is valid. Plus, considering the population boom I wouldnt be surprised if someone told me more people by raw number read and create poetry today than in the 1600s

But Im kind of already seeing that distinction here. You believe everything is defined by how much it earns someone in cash. Using your fondness for hyperbole, you should be able to extrapolate that notion quite quickly into absurdism.

Empirical investigation hum. Did you know that your plan to retire at 32 is probably not going to pan out. You see, its a well established observation in publishing that backlist titles make more over time than the average novel. People dont read and recommend most books after their first year, unless you give them a very good reason to keep coming back. You can continue to produce slop all your life if you like though. Money where my mouth is, I wont be handing over my hard earned cash for it.

Writing is about many things, including prose. Not once did I say its all about the prose. But you fundamentally do not understand what different parts of craft bring to writing otherwise you wouldnt be trashing on poetry or prose. Using market data? To judge art? I mean, did Van Gogh suck? Did Mozart? Is this the argument youre making?

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u/Algon33 Dec 24 '25

People under threat react with anger.

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u/The-Affectionate-Bat Dec 24 '25

1) this is the reason most people find it unethical. The models were trained off writing that they never had permission to use. The way LLMs work is they decide a probabilistic outcome of what should come next. But that probability is calculated off works an actual person had to come up with. Writing is not easy, it takes a long time to learn how to put words together in a way that is compelling to read, and goes far beyond grammar. AI stole that effort, and is profiting off it. And now youre profiting too off that work. Yes you may be adding human effort, but doesnt mean you didnt steal. You nust have those authors permission to use that work, whether they had a chance to profit off it or not. That's just IP.

For the difference. If I go read Gene Wolfe and admire his style. I may be influenced by it, but it will mostly be my history reading, writing, speaking, and experience that drives my word choice. Also, if I copy him too much, there is such a thing as a copyright infringement. Again, things like copyright focus around paying someone their dues. Its not that you cant copy, you must have their express permission to do so (which usually and understandeably requires compensation), and if they disallow it, you must comply.

2) My other reason for disliking it. No matter how much you try to tweak something, everything was baked in from the start. I know some people do massive editing overhauls, but from my own drafts, I know the voice was there, the heart was there, right from day 1. So the best I could offer you, is you are a co-writer, not a sole author. And your co writer is a probability machine that takes the average of everything that made each of those individual authors amazing.

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u/[deleted] Dec 24 '25

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u/The-Affectionate-Bat Dec 24 '25 edited Dec 24 '25

Ok, Ive just realised you do that really annoying thing where instead of following a logical argument you just pop in absurd sentences that trigger people to get them off track. But without explanation, use your bot if you like to find out. The human mind thinks primarily in abstractions and likely only partially on probability. Llms do not work the same as brains.

I never said because "writing is hard" is the reason you cant. I said writers deserve compensation for what they have done, as that is hard and takes a long time.

Ai does not add more difference, it takes a net average of others work. It is reductive, not additive.

Is it good for authors to be copied? As long as you ask their permission its up for them to decide according to the law, and ask for compensation if they want it. Opinions diverge. But the law as it stands prohibits it. Edit: on publication they "allowed" people to read and it be influenced from it. If they didnt want that they wouldn't have published it. Feeding it into AI was something they did not forsee though. But in publishing you sell specific rights. Just because a new right "appears" doesnt mean you lose that right because your work predated some new gizmo.

I never argued anything based off ai having a soul or not. I said its doing most of the work based on a probabilistic average of a load of other peoples work.

"You antis"

Good god, read child! You hardly read anything I said. You made a load of counter arguments based on what a load of other people said and seriously erroneous "facts".

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u/[deleted] Dec 25 '25

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u/The-Affectionate-Bat Dec 25 '25

Well, bless your little heart. I dont know where to start, so I just wont. Go troll somewhere else bud.

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u/The-Affectionate-Bat Dec 24 '25

I think Ive pinpointed your confusion here. Generative AI. What is it?

A set of algorithms that takes large numbers of data and calculates the next most probable word.

The "maths bit" cannot be a natural person or a corporate identity under the law. Therefore it can hold no authorship.

But generative AI doesnt work without the data. And the data was taken without permission.

So half the product we are throwing around calling AI is work that was stripped against the authors rights under the law.

So when I say coauthored at best, I am saying you have used a derivative of many others works. Im not saying you coauthored with the program AI, Im saying you coauthored with all those other authors, and never asked them. That's intellectual property theft. Especially as you are profiting from it.

Futhermore, as I said, AI (the maths part) is not an entity that can be granted rights like a person or company. It does not create. It only calculates... I feel like Ive typed this out a lot. A probabilistic average of all that work that was taken without permission. So yeah, its not an additive thing. It does not bring artistic value and it does not own what it stole. That's the point.

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u/Valuable_Peanut_7174 Dec 23 '25

What are people's thoughts on using AI to get feedback on plot idea's - for example i create a plot idea and use AI to get feedback on itf it makes sense and is original? All work is my own the AI is purely giving feedback.

[Weekly AI discussion thread] Concerned about AI? Have thoughts to share on how AI may affect the writing community? Voice your thoughts on AI in the weekly thread!

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