My Inner Debate - IWSG October 2023

 

Welcome to IWSG Day. The goal of this blog hop is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a haven for insecure writers of all kinds. IWSG is the brainchild of Alex Cavanaugh. Thank you to the October co-hosts, Natalie Aguirre, Kim Lajevardi, Debs Carey, Gwen Gardner, Patricia Josephine, and Rebecca Douglass. To read posts from other contributors, click here. 

October question: The topic of AI writing has been heavily debated across the world. According to various sources, generative AI will assist writers, not replace them. What are your thoughts?

This month’s question reminds me of a conversation I had with a college professor last spring. He expressed profound disappointment that students use AI thinking they can bluff their way to good grades on their papers. He said he could usually tell when he read the final product. We talked about how, as AI takes a stronger hold in education and business, it will become harder and harder to discern the truth. 

Honestly, since then I haven’t delved deep enough into the topic but here is my naive and uneducated take. Imagine a piece of highway hotel room art. It fills a blank wall and brings color to a room. Maybe it hides a stain. It’s utilitarian. That said, it’s more than likely mass produced, whether by a machine or by someone creating the same piece over and over. The piece may be technically proficient. Some people may even like it. But it lacks depth and passion. It lacks emotion. It’s missing finesse.

Recently an author I follow used AI to create a sample story before critiquing it. The story was like the wall art. It had a beginning, a middle and an end. It even had an arc. But it was plodding and definitely without nuance. In my mind, a computer can't take the place of the intangibles inspired by our humanity (so far). Still, the exercise begs the question. Could a writer take a story originally created via AI and flesh it out, tweak it, give it subtlety and turn it into something that touches a reader? Could they use it as a jumping off point to create a masterful novel?

I don’t know enough to know, and it feels like cheating to me. That said, I'm talking about fiction here, which is all about entertainment. Maybe we're simply encountering the newest way to do a thing. It doesn't feel right to me, but I have to ask myself. If the end product triggers emotions and the reader feels fulfilled by the experience of reading, does it matter how the story is produced?

I confess. Writing this month's essay kind of felt like bluffing my way through a college paper without having done the reading (no AI involved). I am aware there are deeper issues related to the recently resolved writer's strike, labor questions, and the threat of AI eliminating jobs. I'm simply not well-read enough on the topic to address them. Keep that in mind and don't be too hard on me in your comments.