Have you ever used or considered using artificial intelligence (AI) tools to assist in drafting and editing your manuscripts? There are a few ethical and practical considerations. In this article, I will provide a fact- and statistics-based summarization of the current state of generative AI with a focus on the creative writing landscape, supplemented by my personal perspective.
Perceptions and Implications of Generative AI in Art
As the term suggests, generative AI encompasses the generation of art pieces (writing, visual art, music, etc.) based on user input. The use of generative AI to produce art is controversial for a number of reasons. Generative AI does not create artwork from scratch but rather uses pattern recognition tools to ‘remix’ pieces of existing works without the consent of the original creators, raising concerns about copyright infringement as well as the devaluation of human artistry.
The outcry online after an AI-generated art piece won a prize from the Colorado State Fair’s annual art competition in 2022 underscores the general resentment on the use of AI for artistic creation. In his defense, the winner of the prize (Jason M. Allen) stated his AI-generated piece took more than 80 hours to complete. His process involved playing around with the phrasing inputted into the generative AI program; using photoshop to edit the three final images after sifting through 900 iterations; and then running them through another AI program to improve resolution.
I have never used AI writing tools for my creative works in any capacity and do not intend to do so in the future. Most—if not all—of the sense of fulfillment and accomplishment I derive from creative writing comes from knowing that I used my own mental faculties and put in the time and effort to write something meaningful and of artistic metric, from the conception of the idea to the final draft.
According to Google, art is defined as “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination.” Based on this definition, the introduction of AI into the creative process undermines the purpose and value of art through the outsourcing of mental tasks traditionally completed by humans.
Impact of AI on Publishing Industry
In the literary world, the use of generative AI has led to a surge in ‘scam’ books on Amazon. These books tend to be low-quality summaries of existing (most often, recently published) titles, created by bad actors with the intent of funneling away sales from legitimate authors. Not all AI-generated books on Amazon are cheap knock-offs or companion works. Some are original works, though given the nature of generative text AI and self-disclosure policies, determining a ballpark figure for the number of books written by AI is difficult.
As of writing this article, the Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) content guidelines require authors to disclose the inclusion of AI-generated content (text, images, or translations) whenever they publish a new book, edit a published book, or republish an existing book through KDP for the first time. Authors are not required to provide disclosures on AI-assisted content which is defined as the use of AI to refine and modify content that had been initially created from scratch by the author themselves.
In an effort to safeguard and promote human creativity in the publishing industry, I believe published authors should provide full disclosure on both AI-generated and -assisted content.
How Are Writers Using Generative AI?
Perhaps some writers want to leverage the power of AI to make a quick profit from publishing. For myself, financial rewards and worldly acclaim from my creative writing, while desired, are not my main motivators. I acknowledge, however, the usefulness of AI in helping writers, in particular those who struggle with at least some aspect of the creative writing process, bring their ideas to life. For example, as someone who struggles with writing dialogue exchanges, I am inclined to turn to ChatGpt for help in this area.
The Author’s Guild conducted a survey on generative AI technology in which more than 1,700 authors from diverse backgrounds took part. Among the 23% of respondents who reported to using AI technology in their writing process, 47% use it for checking grammar, 29% for brainstorming, 14% for structuring and organizing drafts, 26% for marketing, and 7% for text generation. Among those who reported using AI technology for text generation, 1.4% stated that AI-generated text comprised at least 50% of their work; and 89% stated that AI-generated text comprised less than 10% of their work.
Furthermore, regarding the use of authors’ work in training generative AI, 90% of the more than 1,700 respondents believe they are entitled to compensation and 86% believe they deserve proper accreditation.
Quality of AI-Generated Writing
Quality-wise, AI-generated works tend to be much better written than those of novice writers but not quite the same caliber as those of seasoned professionals. ChatGpt, in my experience of playing around with it, is great at producing work that is free from grammatical and spelling errors while adhering to the basic principles of strong writing and storytelling. Where the chatbot struggles, however, is writing with a distinct, non-detached voice and coming up with intriguing, complex plots.
Overall, generative text AI is capable of producing a solid skeleton of story as well as helping writers conduct research and brainstorm or get inspiration for ideas. Even though I will opt to not involve AI in my creative writing endeavors, the potential of human-AI collaboration for delivering profound and high-quality stories to readers is undeniable.
Scheherazade 
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