AI’d

/ Diane Henders

There’s been a lot in the news lately about Artificial Intelligence and how AI is disrupting the writing and publishing industry. 

When AI-written “stories” first appeared a couple of years ago, authors scoffed.  AI-generated stories were bad.  Really bad.  Whew, nothing to worry about.

But…

We didn’t know that the creators of AI had scraped up a giant library of books (without paying for them) and fed them to the hungry AI machine.  And recently, I’ve seen excerpts from AI-written books that were… not awful.  Or at least, not substantially more awful than a lot of human-written books.  For one thing, AI usually uses correctly-spelled words in appropriate context, which is refreshing for a word-nerd like me.

What’s not-so-refreshing is the knowledge that AI is gunning for our jobs.  Maybe not so much for fiction writers (yet), but I’d be nervous if I was a non-fiction writer. 

Hell, I’m nervous anyway.  Even if AI-written fiction never quite matches the quality of human-created fiction (and I don’t see any reason why it won’t eventually… or next year), Amazon is already being flooded with millions of AI-generated books.  Some of them even steal an established author’s name and put it on the cover; so be wary if you discover that your favourite author has unexpectedly released a new book or ten.

From a reader’s standpoint, AI-generated books would be a boon.  AIs never have to take time off from writing for injuries or illness or family crises. And why wait a year or more for a human author to release their next book, when AI can pump them out faster than any human can read?  Maybe the books aren’t as “good”, but “good” is so subjective that it’s nearly irrelevant.  I’ve struggled through some human-produced fiction that’s so bland it might as well have been computer-generated.

When I was a kid, nobody had heard of AI except farmers… and they knew AI meant Artificial Insemination.  Today’s AI has a lot in common with the original meaning:  We’re all gonna get thoroughly screwed; it won’t be any fun; and we won’t even get a kiss first.

But being human means I’m capable of stubbornly ignoring unpleasant facts. Since it’s far too late to slap the lid back on this particular Pandora’s Box, I’m going to just keep writing and hoping for the best.  In fact, I’m going to get really subversive here and imagine a happy outcome! 

Courts have already ruled that AI-generated works can’t be copyrighted (at least so far — this is a very new area of copyright law). So maybe in some rose-tinted fictional future, the proceeds from sales of AI-generated works will be divvied up and distributed to human authors.  Seems only fair, since the AIs learned to write by reading our books in the first place.

Hey, I can dream, right?

P.S. I hear you asking, “How can I support a human author when I’ve already bought all their books?” Answer: Thank you for supporting human authors! If you want to help, introduce your favourite books to your friends, and post about your faves on social media. Every mention helps! (Some authors have donation buttons on their websites, too. I haven’t felt comfortable doing that yet, so I welcome your thoughts about it.)

Book 18 update: I’m on Chapter 20, sneaking up on the halfway point! Aydan is struggling to put out metaphorical fires that seem to pop up every time she turns around. But then, what else is new?

38 thoughts on “AI’d”

  2. I am learning to hate AI because it is encroaching upon artist territory (me being an artist). Artists (and writers) have a hard enough time getting their work out there. I have pretty much given up trying to sell my art and am going a different way. Hopefully one which will generate a decent income. Right now, it’s pretty easy to differentiate between AI and “real art” but it’s going to get harder in the future.

    I hear ya about the “donate” button. I have mulled over doing the Patreon thing but I can’t quite get there. Seems too much like begging.

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    • I feel the same way about Patreon/donate buttons, and I don’t really see any way around the issue. Some people are perfectly fine with it, and others are instantly turned off. But I guess that’s art in a nutshell — you can’t please everyone no matter how hard you try.

      I agree that AI will soon be good enough to be indistinguishable from human-created art. And even if human-created art does retain its value, that only means there will be a whole wave of charlatans who pass off AI art as human-created. I guess we humans will have to turn into ‘performing artists’ — if people can actually watch you create it, your art has provenance. (Might work for artists, but I can’t imagine anybody wanting to watch me typing my heart out, pacing, and/or staring blankly at the ceiling.) 🙂

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  3. The whole AI issue makes me very nervous. I mean, did we learn nothing from the Terminator? 🤨 lol. But seriously it does make me nervous. As far as books go, my author list is pretty set so I don’t foresee any AI books infiltrating my tbr pile. However I will be checking for that if I decide to venture outside of my favorites because I think it’s BS and I don’t want it. I do realize that that’s my opinion and not everyone shares it. Fine. And business is business and they’re going to sell whatever sells, and again, fine. But I want it clearly marked or stated or whatever, and not in the “fine print”, that that is what you’re getting. Maybe make it its own genre: you’ve got your action novels, your dramas, AI, romance, westerns….like that. A place for everything and let people make their own choices. You know, it’s pretty to think that human authors would benefit financially from AI sales, but let’s face it, this is business and the truth will be ugly and disappointing. Cynical? Who me?
    As for the donate button, I say go for it. Once upon a time it was the done thing for novelists, musicians, artists and poets to have patrons so they could make their art and not have to worry or get sidelined by financial matters. And look at YouTube! They have a “Patreon” (I hope I spelled that correctly) program that viewers can subscribe to that helps support their favorite channels. I don’t see how this is any different. But you do you. If it makes you uncomfortable I get it. Maybe some Never Say Spy merch? I have an extensive coffee mug collection I’m always looking to add to, lol!
    Half way through 18?!? Woohoo!! Looking forward to it! There’s so much to be said for anticipation!
    Have a great week!

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    • I don’t know why this thing changed my name. I’ve been having trouble with word press since the new year started. It now seems to think I need to have my own website to publish a comment on your blog. Darn technology. FYI: my name is Michelle.

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      • Hi Michelle! Yeah, WordPress.com is really starting to annoy me. I’m seriously considering switching over to a self-hosted site; but then I look at how many spam comments WordPress.com is capturing for me, and start adding up the cost of equivalent spam protection and security for self-hosted sites, plus all the extra work that self-hosting requires, and… yeah, I’m still tolerating WordPress.com. Maybe next year…

        In my heart of hearts, I agree that there’s likely no pretty outcome for authors when they’re pitted against AI-generated content. I can only hope that human-crafted writing retains a bit of value just because it’s human-created; kinda like the difference between buying mass-produced IKEA furniture or hand-made solid wood furniture. (Except I really like IKEA furniture; and fewer and fewer people can afford hand-made solid wood; and… okay, now I’m just depressing myself.) 😉

        Thanks for your comments about the Donate button — you raise some excellent points. I guess there’s no one-size-fits-all answer. (But then again, there never is. Whenever I see ‘one-size-fits-all’, my instant reaction is ‘one size fits all of what, exactly?’

        Merch! An excellent idea! I have a bunch of designs that I created before I hurt my back, but just haven’t had enough “desk time” to set up a store yet. But my mug collection is crying for me to get on with it! 🙂

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  4. Pingback: Superflops! – The Mansionic Perspective

  5. AI is an enigma to me, Diane.
    I use it to create images for my blog, which is good. Being used to steal words, as you write here… that’s bad. I’ve heard it’s being developed to translate animal sounds so we can communicate with them – that’s good (but a little frightening). I don’t like the fact that it can take us over in the blink of an eye… and thinking about that, in some areas it already has.
    Best if we carry on regardless and keep writing, Diane… we could write a science fiction piece where AI consumes itself, which is scraped up, becomes code and begins the end of AI■■■■■■□

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  6. Great and timely post, Diane. AI is a dangerous beast. It’s super scary and especially the abuse of authors’ names and theft of their content should be prevented and punished.

    As a travel memoir author, I’m not too worried, in a way, since our books are solely based on experiences. But, then again, AI can make up experiences, so who knows?

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    • You’re right — I think “who knows?” pretty well sums up the AI situation. I guess we’re experiencing the equivalent of the Industrial Revolution: A sudden influx of technology that completely changes the way we do things. A lot of traditional jobs got redefined then, too… for better or worse.

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    • *shivers* NOPE! I have zero interest in using an AI assistant. If I’m going to have an assistant, I want it to at least tell the truth. All. The. Time.

      But I did get a kick out of the story of one of the airlines (was it Air Canada?) whose chatbot lied to a passenger about fees or fares or some such. The court said that Air Canada “employed” the chatbot so they were responsible for its output, and they ruled in favour of the passenger. Hooray for karma! 😁

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  8. All AI-generated content worries me. It’s being used even in writing cover letters for accounting firms now. Taking over that kind of drudge work isn’t even necessary given that you can make a template that serves the same purpose. If the letter covers less repetitive stuff, you’d have to read very closely to make sure your input came out right, so where is the time or labour saving (which I assume is the point for that kind of content)? As for creative writing, I don’t think it will easily get beyond the formulaic, which is kind of the opposite of creative. However, in the 80s when we got our first computer, I never thought we’d be where we are now. Maybe I’m just not a visionary.

    I don’t mind Donate buttons at all, depending on how the accompanying blurb is worded. If it’s clear the writer has a sense of humour (you do!) and isn’t demanding payment (I don’t think that’s what you’re into!) I see it as just another way to voluntarily support a writer.

    Your analogy to the old-style AI made me grin 😀

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    • I’m glad you got a grin! And thanks for your input on the Donate button, too. When I first heard about the idea, I felt kinda squicky because it feels like, “Oh, thanks for buying my books; please give me even more money now.” Blech.

      But then again, I have serious issues with asking for help, so I’m probably not the best judge. And writing new content for this blog is all “unpaid” time that could be spent working on a book, so… meh. Like I said, I’m on the fence. (Note to self: Straddling pickets is uncomfortable.)

      I’m seriously concerned about all the lawyers who have already gotten tripped up using AI “hallucinated” data in their lawsuits. And if that many have been caught, you can bet there are a whole bunch that got away with it. I wouldn’t worry so much about AI if it was programmed to simply respond, “I don’t know” if it didn’t have relevant data; but creating a program that casually lies about stuff and pretends it’s fact…? Yikes!

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  9. I have mixed feelings about AI. (And not Adobe Illustrator…who I don’t really get along with all that well.) I don’t see much “intelligence” in AI, to be honest.

    From the tech side, it’s a mixed bag. It can’t write complex code, so it won’t be putting any programmers out of a job. As for search results, I see AI as something that only aggregates and returns existing results in a conversational style, vs. presenting them as the lists we are used to. And like you say, if you ask it to return a longer-form work, it spits out what it ingested. Plagiarism? I think it borders on that.

    That said, an acquaintance of mine in advertising says they no longer need to use illustrators to provide mock-ups for clients–they can generate low-quality material in AI as placeholders in a fraction of the time it took a team to create in the past. That is not a good outcome for creatives.

    I’ve tried some of the image generation sites and all of them provided flawed if not unrelated images based on my input. It takes a lot of prompting to get an approximation of what I’m after and even then, there are still flaws in the results, if not bizarre in some way. I mean, I didn’t ask for the cat to have four ears.

    I did hit gold, though. I had wanted a logo for my rally “team” (myself, and anyone else who rides along) and tried a few of the popular AI image generators. Some had interesting results. None could get the wording spelled correctly, even though I clearly spelled out the wording. A few created some interesting classic cars that were reminiscent of models in the past. But after going through many iterations, one of the results was an instant “yes.” Sure, the words were spelled wrong, and the background was uneven, but the idea was correct.

    I ended up deconstructing part of the AI image, removing the wording, correcting parts of the background, and it only took an hour to get what I wanted. It took me a little longer on a couple of creative details (like the style and color of lettering I wanted), but my end result is that I now have two t-shirts printed up (thanks, Zazzle), some vinyl stickers for rallies, and a logo I can use online for branding (such as, when we post our checkpoints).

    Having said all that, I could have paid my youngest, the art school grad, to come up with something… 😁

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    • LOL! Maybe that’s the whole AI phenomenon in a nutshell: It’s really cool to play around with, and it works for idea generation, but in the end it doesn’t really save you any time. I suspect that will change, though, as the technology matures. When I compare the output of the AI “stories” of a year or two ago with what it’s putting out now, there’s no comparison.

      Now I want to see your new logo! Will you be posting it on your rally site? Which image generator provided the winning idea?

      Hubby says the same thing about AI: It can’t write complex code because its internal structure prevents it from generating that type of output. That’s true now, but who knows what the future holds? But considering that AI just makes shit up if it doesn’t know the answer, it might make for some *ahem* unforeseen code results. 😉

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      • I haven’t put the logo on the site yet–it’s usually a battle with WordPress whenever I need to alter a theme. But I should put up a post there with the new logo and all the AI versions I rejected. Some were interesting, a couple weird… 😁

        I used the image generator at Microsoft/Bing, which uses DALL-E 3 as the image generation engine. I did try others with mixed results. The ImageFX that Google offers has some interesting results. Adobe Firefly, though, has been disappointing any time I’ve tried it. There are a couple others I’m forgetting, but they can be a whole lot of fun when fed with text prompts. I created one set of pictures with three cats in steampunk attire in a 1950s diner, and another of the canyons in Utah with lit Christmas trees lining the sides of the roads. (Yeah, it was a slow evening!)

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        • I love the idea of the retro steampunk cats! And I’ll have to send Hubby over to MS/Bing — he’s working on a logo for his current enterprise of creating audiophile-quality open-baffle speakers from live-edge maple. Maybe MS/Bing can come up with something cool… or weird… 😉

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          • Interesting–I know a few acquaintances online who are into open baffle speakers. (Makes me wonder if our paths have crossed online somewhere.) One of the small audio forums I belong to is based in Canada, coincidentally, and friendly to small companies.

            One former audio club pal has made audio components out of natural materials–one of his turntable designs used a slab of live-edge wood. (He moved away, but he still keeps in touch.) The live edge woodworking sounds (no pun intended) as though it will be something unique, as others I’ve seen look like science experiments. It would be interesting to see the results!

            I’m heading to AXPONA in April, which your hubby likely has heard of.

            I did try creating a logo for another site, but haven’t hit on a winning combination of words yet. All I can suggest is to keep changing the wording and styling cues slightly (like photorealistic, abstract, pop art, watercolor, etc.) and eventually something will come up. And being more descriptive helps. I wanted my logo to show a garage in the background, and an older car…and I eventually got there after trying three different sites. I believe only Adobe Creative Cloud subscribers can get access to Firefly, but given that they’re behind the others, nobody is missing out on much.

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  10. I’m waiting with bated breath for this next book. I have all the previous ones which I keep reading frequently. Rest assured my reading is from human authors.

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  11. AI is unfortunately here to stay . One has to now do due diligence whether it is a book or picture or article on Facebook. There is a lot of Fake out there up to and including someone running for president a country. I agree the best one can do is promote favourite authors.

    As far as the donate button…. to me it is kinda like doing a go fund me page because you can’t pay the rent. I think it is rather inappropriate.

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    • Thanks for your thoughts about the Donate button, Shirley. I kinda felt the same way, which is why I haven’t done it.

      The deepfakes are truly scary – you literally can’t trust anything you see anymore. It’s funny/sad that the internet, which originally started as a wonderful way to share information, has now made us all more suspicious and less likely to trust what we read.

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  12. I think there is going to be some very interesting lawsuits on this whole AI thing. I also predict that AI stories will become like the Hallmark channel – one plot line with different characters …

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