I love to play with words. I love to move them around, trying to find the most powerful order. I love to wander the house mumbling to myself because the right word is lurking just on the outskirts of my thinking. I love scribbling an idea on the back of the grocery list. I love the feeling when someone reads something I wrote and I can tell they like it. Of course, on other days I'm frustrated, my hair looks like Albert Einstein's and I've erased more than I've written. But I can't stop no matter how many bad days I have. In other words, I'm a writer.
So A.I. has confused me from the beginning. Why would you want a computer to write/improve/edit your work? Doesn't that take all the fun out of writing? The joy of saying, "I wrote this!"
I guess people have their reasons. Time. Money. Fear. Deadlines. Take your pick. But it was never for me. I don't even let AI write my Facebook posts (even though it politely makes suggests that I promptly ignore). Because I want my words to sound like me not...perfectly polished prose.
Despite not using the controversial generators, I've been watching the AI invasion as a concerned creative person. I worried briefly about the creepy idea that AI could "learn" to write using some of my writing. Like all writers, I pondered the idea of AI generated novels flooding the marketplace. But surely publishing professionals and readers would immediately reject anything AI generated. For me, AI remained a weird thing in the industry that didn't really touch my life.
Until the Hachette debacle, which ironically sounds like a novel. Successful self-published novel acquired by traditional publisher. Hooray! Reviewers begin questioning if it's AI. Traditional publisher pulls book. And here's the twist - author claims it wasn't them. Their first editor must have used AI.
It's the twist that's given me another thing to add to my worry list. Now it isn't enough that we as writers don't use AI personally. Now we have to make sure that everyone who touches our work throughout the process doesn't use AI. How can we as authors ever be sure what our editors use or don't use? As a writer, I've already had to sign several contracts promising that no AI tools will be used in completing my assignment. Should we be adding no AI clauses to editing contracts now? And how can we be sure our editors are honoring our AI ban?
I'm tired of AI. Can we just go back to red pen editing of yesteryear?
Jodi M. Webb writes from her home in the Pennsylvania mountains. She's also a blog tour manager for WOW-Women on Writing. In her mind she calls AI "Big Al". She isn't a fan of Big Al. Follow her writing and reading life at Words by Webb.
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