Talk to any creative about AI and you might as well be talking about Naziism or the Black Death. Everything about it is toxic and abhorrent. The overall sense of evil is not helped by some of the big tech companies helping themselves to copy-write data such as ripped off copies of novels to train their Large Language Models. Battles are being waged globally to demand fair recompense for use of copy-write and — almost as important — to let the tech companies know that they are not a law unto themselves and that, even in this world of MAGA madness, human and creative rights will be defended.
As somebody who has worked most of their adult life in technology and who is an unrepentant technophile, I have a broader view. There’s a saying I’ve heard from many sources: you won’t lose your job to an AI, but you will lose your job to somebody who figures out how to do a better job by taking advantage of AI.
For a writer, the notion of not merely using AI but actively promoting it may sound anathema, but as LLMs in particular develop from the ugly, hallucinating things they are now into useful tools over the next few years, not only will writers turn to them, but working writers who eschew them may struggle to keep up in the publishing world.
Here’s my vision: John is a working writer. He has published five books and he’s under tight timelines to churn out the sixth. John sits down to work in the morning and engages JANE, his agent/AI/language engine. Although JANE runs in one of the big tech data centres, John pays a solid sum to ensure his own data is private to himself.
As John begins typing, JANE is reading and advising. Of course JANE can do spell and grammar checking, and of course JANE can tell enough about context to understand common misspellings and misuses, nothing particularly new there. JANE however can also adapt on the fly to different styles, use of the vernacular. JANE can make decisions on the fly about whether “gonna” works in the context or just sounds wrong for the way John writes. So far so good.
John gets onto some dialogue, and now JANE takes a step up. John’s character Damo says “how’re yez doing” and JANE immediately knows this is okay since Damo has a Dublin accent and this is the way John signifies Dublin accents. JANE also has access to copywriter material that John has paid for, such as Roddy Doyle or Estelle Birdy, that have working examples of portraying Dublin accents, so JANE can suggest other vernacular misspellings that John might consider. If he ignores the first couple, then JANE stops. JANE can also track which character is talking and can verify if each character is talking in-character as he goes. Great stuff.
Even better, JANE is tracking each character and can not only provide as much detail about each one as requested, but will actively engage if John is going outside of character, or if he’s changing details like age or hair style.
JANE is of course intimately familiar with John’s first five books and with the good reviews on Goodreads and so on, so is happy to guide John if he starts to drift away from what he’s good at. JANE has also read the human edits of his first five novels, so it can advise on changes that the editor or proof reader will likely require. John can choose to fix these on the fly if he wants, or keep them in a summary for a future revision.
JANE can also write comprehensive synopses of any length or brevity, so John’s agent, publisher, editor and so on can all be kept up to date on progress, and can jump in if they feel John’s not sticking to the novel that was promised.
Finally, whenever John is stuck for an idea, JANE has access to a wide library of non-copy-write books and everything that John has paid for, so can advise on subplots that might suit a situation.
The net-net is John’s creativity increases and his lead time on this novel drops from 8-9 months down to 3 months, allowing him to write more books.
Okay, you say, but everything that ChatGPT produces creatively is rubbish. True, but the key thing here is that you’re not getting the AI to write, you’re just using it to help the writer. The human skill is what makes the novel.
Or you say what if the AI gets good enough to replace John? I don’t see that happening. There will be use cases where readers want fan-fiction or niche fiction (don’t even think about what kind of niches will be most popular), but the central tenet of a writer creating a novel will not change. Look at photography. It has not superseded art, merely pushed artists away from purely representative pictures to works that involve humanity and emotion. Humans are here to stay, despite the doom-sayers, and as long as there are humans there will be human creativity.
My advice: yes, let’s show the tech companies they cannot ignore the copy-write rules, but don’t drag your heels on technological aids as they develop. Ultimately you will benefit.
