My take on the use of AI by writers

Writing has experienced several electronic revolutions in the last 40 years. First there was the increase in speed permitted by electric typewriters, soon followed by typewriters with a small digital screen that allowed you to perfect each line before it was typed. Word processing software, which took off in the late 70s with Wordstar, could turn any PC into a word processor, and suddenly a writer could instantly know their word count and run spelling and grammar checks.

No one complained that this undermined anyone’s literary skills.

The next revolution was the Internet, which from the early 90s created means for writers to speed up their research. Facts, geographies, plot and character ideas were readily available. When Google Earth came along, writers had the means to visit any street on the planet and observe all the details needed to make their descriptions vivid and detailed. An online dictionary and thesaurus made word selection simple (and also became embedded in word processors).

No one complained.

Specialist software then became available which would help you to develop and map out your plot and create more rounded characters. Word processors could automatically summarise your story.

Still no one minded.

Then AI arrived. AI can do all of the above things, but quicker and easier and, sometimes, better. It can also do them in an automated way. AI can generate character names and traits. It can suggest plot lines, themes and conflicts to include in a story. It can evaluate what you’ve written and suggest where you could improve things. But this is merely a logical progression from where we were in the 1990s when a word processor could underline a spelling error and provide a suggested correction.

This might start to make some people uncomfortable, but it’s probably acceptable to most.

Now comes the bit that makes us all uncomfortable.

AI can write, not just a blurb or a summary, but an entire book. It can also illustrate that book, if needed. Book websites are becoming choked with AI-written stuff that has little to zero human contribution. Human creations become harder to find. And this is not acceptable. I totally support the continued need for humans to write about the human experience.

But I don’t totally disapprove of including AI in the creative process. It just needs to be used within sensible constraints.

AI to help you map out your plot before you begin writing – that’s OK. Other computerised ways of doing this have existed for decades. There are also cards and dice and spreadsheets that can do this.

AI to help you create interesting characters – that’s OK. I used to help writers create characters by having a downloadable character questionnaire on my website, and I now have an AI website that can do the same only with more detail and speed. It’s called Dossier because once you’ve filled in the boxes that’s what it creates for you. I have another site to help generate interesting names that are relevant to the personality of a character. I published this in book format years ago, but the AI-powered website does the same job with more options: Nomina.

AI to create a fun video trailer or advert to promote your book or script – why not? If you haven’t tried it, give it a go. It might be terrible, it might look great.

AI to build a website to promote your work – that’s fine. I used to build my own websites in the 90s, and AI does a far better job at it than I ever could. I still input the ideas, book images and links, but the computer connects all the dots.

AI to give feedback and suggestions on how you can improve your writing – it’s not ideal, because the role of the editor is threatened here. Lots of job types are at risk from AI, especially in the publishing industry, and that saddens me. Some publishers are taking a principled stand against the use of AI in the workflow, and their ideology is to be applauded. An all-human literary production line will be a mark of quality. But I can’t help wondering if they are pushing against a tide that cannot be turned back. When cars took over from horses, an entire industry dedicated to the welfare of those horses was decimated in a few short years.

I don’t have a problem with using AI in the research and polishing stages of writing. I see it as a continuation of the software we’ve been using for the past 30 years or more. You may disagree, and that’s fine. AI is a divisive thing, and we all have to choose where the line should be drawn. Job losses are the obvious downside here, but at a more existential level I’m concerned about losing our ability to write. If AI is helping you in the same way a human could, or speeding up research methods, it’s bad for the people it replaces, but it’s not going to undermine your most fundamental skills as an author. But if you step back and let AI take complete control, then we have a problem. And if humans lose the ability to express their creativity through the written word, it will be a dark day for all of us.

Stewart Ferris

This was written on a word processor using spellcheck to look for typos. AI was not used to write or edit this piece. Any errors are my own. And isn’t weird that we’re in an age where this kind of statement is necessary?