There was a lot of chatter at the writer’s conference I recently attended regarding AI and writing, much to be expected. Everywhere I turn, there’s dialogue regarding generative AI use in fields of creative work – art, writing, design, music, etc.

Let me make my personal stance clear: there is no place for AI in art. None. I have not and would never use AI in the creation of my writing.

AI is the ugly beast I love to hate. I love to see it fail (and it does, often).

As a whole, I feel somewhat disheartened by what I heard over the conference weekend. Although the general consensus was that generative AI should never be used to produce actual writing, there are still many voices in support of its use for research, editing, proofreading, and as I heard again and again, “making [my] life easier.”

A writer mentioned that they use AI to help them outline and brainstorm their novel. One said they put their entire draft through editGPT to catch their mistakes before sending it to an editor (side note, why?) I know more than one person who has used Gemini to make book cover “inspiration” or use AI art for their newsletter and blog posts.

I try to approach people with curiosity and understand where they are coming from. When a friend shared their AI use, I really tried to see what they believe they gain from it. Honestly, it sounded like they were mainly looking for feedback on their work – are their scenes connecting to the book theme, is there a clear path of meaning woven through the story, what possible ending will be most satisfying to a reader, etc.

Now, I’m trying to stay on topic and not delve into how disturbing I think it is to willingly feed your own work into an LLM, but it seems to me like this feedback would be better gained from other writers. Yes, it requires sharing your work and a certain level of buy-in from your friends/acquaintances, but isn’t that necessary anyway? As much as we consider writing to be a solitary pursuit, it also isn’t at all. Good writing hardly exists in a vacuum, and it is through workshopping and critique that our greatest skills are honed. Even the most well-published authors have editors, after all.

But for those unpublished, or less published, that feedback comes from connection – the readers we trust with our work. The friendships we build from conferences, local writing groups, online writer forums, and the like. No, it’s not easy. And in some ways, it shouldn’t be. Things that matter take effort. They take time.

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The question that constantly comes to mind during discussions of AI use in the writing world is this: What exactly does a writer gain from using AI?

One response I hear often is time.

Time for what, exactly, I wonder? Isn’t the writing the point? Is that not what we want to spend our time doing? Then I hear people say, “Well, sure I want to write the story but I don’t want to do the brainstorming/research/outline/blah blah blah.” Like…okay and what do you gain by never doing those things? Do you really understand your story if you haven’t done those things? I would argue you don’t. It’s doing the research and taking the time to think through different aspects of your story that helps you understand what exactly you’re telling your reader.

That’s like, the entire point. 

The other argument I see is for AI to do the things that they don’t want to do or find difficult – this is typically in the marketing realm. The blurb. The synopsis. The query. The social media posts. The hard work of distilling your 100k word novel into a 250 word summary that is both interesting and informative and above all, makes sales.

Again, I wonder, what are we saving here by offloading this to a machine? If we never do the work, we never learn how to do the work. Yes, blurb writing is hard. Personally, I hate it. I’m terrible at it. That’s why I do it. I will never get better at it if I let a machine do it for me. My brain will never learn to make the necessary connections, and aside from memorizing the blurb that AI spits out for me, I will never be able to tell someone about my book on the fly. How could I, if I don’t know how to distill the core of my story? If I don’t know what makes it important, how can I expect anyone else to see it?

Are we collectively losing faith in the value of critical thought? The intrinsic value of training our brains to do difficult things? Did you know that learning happens best when there is a certain amount of friction involved? Comprehension and confidence are built through challenging our minds with something just slightly beyond our current abilities; that’s what builds strength in our minds.

It is a shame to see that people are so willing to remove every challenge from their path. Writing a book isn’t easy, and it shouldn’t be. It is a creative act. An art form. It requires careful thought and planning and the hard work of sitting at a desk and putting words to paper month after month when you’d rather do anything else.

I have more thoughts about AI, but for the sake of keeping this post on the topic of writing, I’ll try to wrap it up. Even if I could accept the arguments I’ve seen and heard, they don’t take into consideration the other long-term impacts of AI economically, environmentally, or socially. I don’t agree with making things incrementally easier for some individuals at the expense of millions of living beings who are impacted by the data centers, water usage, and inherently imbalanced power structures behind AI. Nor do I agree with the argument that, “AI is not going away, so we just have to deal with it.” As if criticism isn’t warranted because it’s somehow already too late? I don’t believe that.

And look, I’m just one person. Maybe you’ll agree with me, maybe you won’t. I’m not exactly in a position to change anyone’s mind about AI, nor do I feel that’s a healthy use of my time. But I would encourage my fellow writers to be mindful. To be thoughtful and deliberate. And be prepared to share your stance, because people will ask.