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AI writing

17 Comments

I saw an advertisement for something called Designerr. They were saying ‘Publish a book in minutes without writing a single word’.

As a writer, I think this is disgusting. I emailed them to their help line, which was the only method of getting in touch unless you wanted to sign up, and got a reply asking how they could help me. I’ve just sent the following reply.

This is not a plea for help, it’s just me giving my opinion. AI ‘writing’ books is a terrible idea. It cannot understand what it’s doing, nor the underlying craft of writing. It only knows what words usually follow another.

AI knows nothing of people and their emotions, which are important parts of writing meaningful books. The stuff it churns out is dreadful, so I’ve been told.

AI can only learn from scraping books already published by hard-working authors who spend many months, or even years getting a book to a standard where it’s ready for publishing. Many of these books that are scraped are pirated, too.

To suggest that someone can publish a book in minutes without writing a single word is disgusting, and an insult to genuine authors.

And you are taking work away from real writers!

My opinion. I suppose you’ll have yours. I’d be interested to hear from you about it.

The Arts

IT MAY ONLY BE TWO LETTERS LONG BUT IT’S STILL SCARY

5 Comments

I recently read this post by Owen Elgie about AI.

IT MAY ONLY BE TWO LETTERS LONG BUT IT’S STILL SCARY

Would AI be less scary if it’s got a name? Are people scared of Alexa, or Siri in the same way as the unnamed AI? Many people are quite happy to have them in their house.

Like you, I am more worried about the effect of AI on the Arts, especially writing. There are already books being churned out ‘written’ by AI.

I feel, that at the moment, AI can’t tap into the nuances of human behaviour and emotions. It doesn’t understand ‘feelings’. A bit like Mr Spock in Star Trek, only more so. As a result, the books written by AI aren’t that good.

But will it learn about these things, and the nuances of language? In English, we have words that have very similar in meaning, but have a subtly different sense. Can it learn when to use run or sprint? Can it learn about interpreting body language?

And art. Will it be able to add those subtle things that turn a painting from a simple realistic scene to one that stirs the emotions? And the same for an abstract.

One poet of my acquaintance (and I’m sure he’s not the only one) wrote a poem, and gave AI the same brief. His was so much better.

I expect things will develop as AI learns, but it’s got a long way to go, as yet. Mind you, judging by a few badly written books that have become best sellers in recent years, I’m not entirely convinced that many of the reading public are bothered about the writing.

Of course, we already use AI. Many people use it for research, although I’m unsure about that as I understand it’s not always as accurate as it might be.

What about spell checkers and programs such as Grammarly and Hemmingway? They are AI, too.

And games programs, too, many of which learn. Even my car learns about my style of driving and how it differs from that of my husband. (It knows which key has been used to unlock and start it.)

How do you feel about AI? Does it scare you?