Considering AI to Help You Write? Please Don't.

Most authors disdain AI-written slop. But many publishing "experts" are pushing it. Why? There's a marketer I have admired due to his seeming integrity and willingness to interact one-on-one with his followers. But he, too, is now slyly promoting the use of AI.

Whatever an author chooses to use AI for, whether it's brainstorming or manuscript analysis, he or she should bear in mind that AI is cold and methodical; the exact opposite of what a novel should be or what a human reader is.

Worse, sometimes AI goes the other way; it tries to be too emotional--which is, in actuality, still cold and methodical. A real person doesn't invent emotion; it arises naturally. I once, out of desperation, asked AI to write a blurb for me. It included all the buzz words that simulated emotion, but when broken down, the blurb said absolutely nothing. "Here's how people feel." Well, no, actually. People feel lots of ways. They're unpredictable, which is what makes them human and not...well, AI. 

As for its analysis, it reads as a stern lecture. Sure, maybe there should be a logical progression to a story, but what if I don't feel like being logical? Stop reprimanding me! I can't even imagine asking AI to analyze my manuscript, although it would be a fun experiment. I suspect that all the things it considers wrong are actually just right--for me and for my story.

And are there writers out there who actually dump their entire story into AI? You know that AI is a thief, right? And pardon me, but I'm not on board with AI using my ideas to help other writers. Let them get their own ideas. I was one of those whose work was stolen by Meta to train its AI model. Zuckerberg (well, not him personally) grabbed my third novel, which I hadn't copyrighted, so I won't get a share of any legal settlement. While the novel never sold, it did have some good twists and turns. So now my "trade secrets" will be shared with every lazy writer out there? 

On the other hand, AI can be good for research, supposedly. My books are not research-heavy, although I had to learn a bunch of obscure facts when writing Running From Herself; facts that weren't crucial to the story, but I also didn't want to come across as a moron when describing certain practices and places (such as the inside of a recording studio). It never occurred to me to use AI for my research. Instead, with, for example, small-time band tours, I found a really great blog post by someone who'd lived it, and it was very detailed. That's the "human" that's missing from AI. 

Too, it's advisable to verify AI's "facts". I'm sure we all remember Google AI's black George Washington. I once argued with AI (yea, I know) about something that it finally conceded I was right about. If you choose to use AI for research, make sure it cites its sources of information.

I have not invested in any pay models, and I won't. Therefore, my experience with AI is limited to Copilot (useless) and Google, of course, whose first result is always something generated by its Gemini product. 

Admittedly, I'm old school, but I choose to trust myself more than I trust anything a machine spits out. And really, a writer should be the very last person to employ AI. No matter what genre one writes in, emotion is key. AI is bereft of emotion.