AI Writing in Question

5 min readMay 12, 2023

I asked writers their thoughts on AI to see if it’s a new villain or hero to their story.

Note that responses were modified and edited for clarity.

The growing usage of AI being used in studies and education is proving to do more harm than good, as one writer addressed:

‘AI absolutely scares me, I hate it. I think that it’s doing nothing for students, as an AI-written paper isn’t allowing them to actually learn and grow as writers and while as of right now it’s very easy to tell when something is written by AI, who knows how much better that technology will get in the future? Is it possible for AI writing to be better than authors? Because I sure hope not.’

But it’s not only in the education field that this is present:

‘People treating AI as a replacement for the original writers is going to cause a massive dip in content production if we don’t get it under control. All AI can do is combine writings that already exist and rewrite storylines that have already been written. If people start to lean into AI writing, the AI will just start copying itself until it all blends together into the same thing. For this reason, there’s no way AI writing will be able to replace human authors. I don’t think we’re going to get ‘replaced’ any time soon, but it’s scary how much this is becoming part of society now.’

But can AI be used to aid writers?

‘I sometimes ask Chat GPT to write x amount of lines of dialogue and give it character descriptions just so I can see how close it is to replacing us. It’s still lacking on the bulk of creativity work, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t get better every time I check. Scary stuff. In case it isn’t clear, I don’t use the generated text in my work.
However, once I pasted a chunk of my writing into it and asked for a critique, it was able to offer some pretty decent editing suggestions. Could be a good tool if used responsibly, but be careful.’

Another writer, despite the threat AI holds, saw the benefits too:

‘I agree with everyone talking about the difference between qualitative creative production and quantitative technical production (i.e., human-made vs AI-generated content).
However, it can be really helpful for people with dyslexia to do normal things like writing emails. My father has dyslexia and AI and all its advances have been super helpful for him.
Basically, AI in creative fields steals content whereas it can be helpful and productive to use it in more practical terms where all the content it bases its responses off of are public domain and not privately owned pieces of art.’

AI becoming the next writers did ignite worry in many responses I got and many feared for the future of writing and creative content creation. As the following statement suggests, AI could be the next new artists:

‘I think it’s great if you use it for inspiration but if it writes the whole story, it’s the AI’s art.’

But AI creating art was not something others appreciated:

‘AI will be the thing that destroys us. It’s making us sloppy and stupid. We will lose our art, therefore- our humanity.’

With a rise in AI, could it be the norm?

‘I think AI could be a problem in the future (possibly near future) but at this point we’re relatively safe as authors, especially considering how much self-publishing on its own has gotten popular since Covid. And I personally think that no computer could be as incredibly, strangely creative as writers or humans are. But then as books have shown us, people can easily forget how things were and assume that what they have is the best version if that’s what they were taught to believe. Although, I can say that audiobook narrators are losing their jobs because of computer-generated narrators so other things can’t be far down the line. Overall, I’d say we should be more worried about how we as humans develop the current AI than the impact it’s having at the moment. AI has the potential to be used for good though but I don’t trust people to actually use it how it should be despite all the warnings in past media (movies like Terminator, Avengers: Age of Ultron, or even Tron) and based on recent news about how the development is going then I’d say they are drifting into that area.’

But we must remember humans created AI and that’s what it will always be, artificial:

‘AI will probably never be able to master the art of telling a story that gets people truly excited to read. As Robert Frost said, “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.” Because AI is… well… AI it cannot be surprised or happy, scared or devastated, and therefore I believe that AI will not be able to compare with the works of real human beings.’

It’s understandable that many writers were scared of the prospect of AI taking away from the craft of writing and being the next best sellers because of the rise in this new technology but a robot will never be a human, no matter how hard they try. Even though this is just the start of AI, delineating there is yet more to come with it’s increasing intelligence, we must not let the fear get to us but rather use it as fuel to keep going and crafting in our own unique, human ways. AI can be used responsibly and as an ally, as we’ve seen, but as with anything, it must be used in moderation but never in fear.

We all have a unique voice and style in which we go about our works, which cannot be matched by AI. Regardless of how close AI comes to humans, it will always be artificial. That’s why, by continuing to power through and create ourselves, as opposed to using AI solely, we will ensure we hold onto our humanity. Only you shall have your writing style, it’s unique to you, so wield it and know no one can replace you. Keeping things personal, adding anecdotes and beautifully human passages are just a few things that AI will never be able to master.

That is why now more than ever, we will not give up or into a new age of modern technology. We will keep creating as we have since the start of time.