Writing in the Age of AI: The Role of Computers in Creativity

Art is about expression. It’s about taking a view of the world and turning it into something that others can experience, and it requires the artist to channel thought, feeling, and emotion into something physical. Art is one of the most human things there is, as without humanity, you lose everything about it that really matters. How is it, then, that I find myself faced with the idea of having to compete with a computer?

The role of artificial intelligence (AI) in society is entirely unprecedented, especially when it comes to the arts, and perspectives on what is and isn’t ethical or otherwise socially acceptable vary. Some believe that it’s acceptable to use AI to create entire projects and some believe that the use of AI in any capacity within the arts is unacceptable, while others stand in various spaces in between. 

I’m one of the people somewhere in the middle. I believe AI can be a helpful tool in the creative process, but using it to produce entire works undermines what it means to be an author.

My primary area of interest, of course, is in literature, where members of the literary community have many opinions. One current debate is over the existence of AI authors, a term which may refer to either the AI itself or the user who takes credit for its output. Many AI programs used to create such works are capable of producing content that is very similar to human-written text, an ability that is likely to only improve as they become better trained in the art of human imitation. 

Here’s the thing: you cannot claim that something written by AI, even if it was written using a prompt you created, was written by you. You are not the author. The computer is. Storytelling talent isn’t just in having a good idea; it’s in the ability to bring that idea to life using your own voice and your own words.

However, this does not mean that I condemn AI entirely. While I have resisted it, I do, in fact, use it myself now. As a college student, I’ve actually been required to use it for several assignments, and in doing so, I’ve also started to learn how it can be useful for certain creative pursuits. We shouldn’t automatically turn our noses up at something just because it’s different from what we’re familiar with. There are times when even the things that seem the scariest can actually be used to our benefit. We just have to make sure that we use them responsibly.

You can learn a lot of valuable things from the suggestions the computer gives you if you pay attention to each of them and consider whether or not implementing them is truly appropriate. You learn nothing from aimlessly accepting every suggestion, especially because some of them are either bad or wrong. Even AI isn’t perfect. It relies on our input to learn from its own mistakes, and sometimes that requires correcting it so that it can properly address the issues and do better next time.

With specific questions and pointers, AI can be used to aid the creative process, especially during brainstorming, organization, development, and evaluation phases. But as close as they may get to having human thoughts, they’re man-made and will never truly have minds of their own. As a result, they’ll never have a human eye in the way that real authors and editors do.

I’m no expert in machine learning, but I do have a baseline knowledge in the context of data science and even that is enough for me to know how important it is that we’re able to train these models like we do. Still, all of this said, authors do have to be careful to ensure that they don’t allow AI programs to be trained using their voices. 

Especially for artists, AI’s training methods raise concerns about data usage and intellectual property. It’s my understanding that there may not be an opt-out option, but that’s why I haven’t touched X (Twitter) in so long. I, along with many other writers, had used the platform as both an advertising tool and a sounding board, sharing pitches and prompts with others who may find them of interest. But when X started being used to train AI programs, many of us left to protect our ideas and voices from being stolen by computer programs that could end up taking them and using them as suggestions for other people (such as the “AI authors”). X’s writing community still exists, and if it’s true that we are now able to opt out of having our posts used for training purposes, I am considering returning to it, but there is a principle that must be maintained. Writers must learn how to simultaneously coexist with and defend themselves against these tools in a way that defines our boundaries and preserves authorship as an art. 

In summary, machines are not evil, but the people who use them can be. You can’t allow yourself to be sucked into the trap of using computers as crutches, as it’s easy to reach a point at which you no longer think for yourself. You need to be able to read, analyze, and write independently, so that any help you receive, from AI or otherwise, enhances rather than replaces your own thinking.