AI and Creativity

I know I’m deviated from the set topic of this blog which is my Writing Essential series but I’ve seen so many AI posts lately that I felt the need to put this down in black on white.

If you’re considering hiring me as your editor I would like to state this for the record: if AI has touched any of the core creative aspects of your process we cannot work together.

Harsh, I know, but I’ve been giving this a whole lot of thought and in the following paragraphs, if you choose to stick with me, I’ll explain to you why I’m taking a hard stance against the use of AI in the creative process.

Firstly, if you’re using AI to help keep your own notes more organised, to brainstorm names, or to simplify some aspects of your research (keeping in mind AI is prone to lying and making stuff up as it goes) I’m not going to show you the door without hearing you out. I’m happy to have a conversation and to get a clearer understanding of why you’ve chosen to use AI as a tool that way.

That said, and secondly, if you’ve used AI for anything beyond this most basic stuff, such as  having AI write your outline for you or asking it to in any way touch your text to correct mistakes for you during your writing process, I will not be able to read, give feedback on, or edit your manuscript.

Why this hard stance, then?

Because AI doesn’t belong in the arts.

And it’s not because it can’t output something that passes for art but because the output it offers is based on theft. Simple as that.

But there’s a market for it, you might argue.

Yes, of course. There’s a market for anything, isn’t there? If it exists there’s sure to be someone able to find a willing buyer of it. That’s capitalism for you.

But I would counter with this question: Should there be a market for it?

Should there be a market for a product that is based on literally ripping off established or struggling creators, taking their years of training, feeding it into a machine that mimics their effort, and spits out something that looks like their original work, sometimes to the point of the original creator no longer being allowed to create their own art because it’s now ”owned” by the AI operator.

Seriously, should there be a market for this? Would you pay for this? And even if you wouldn’t pay for it, would you want to help prop such a market up so that those that might be clueless of what AI generated ”art” actually is might think it’s the thing to partake of?

Reading an AI generated book, engaging in conversation about it as if it’s a valid piece of fiction, and making the title go viral, for example. Supporting that AI ”artist” just because their style seems unique enough to you.

You get me?

I’m not here to tell you this isn’t allowed and how dare you and hellfire and brimstone, yeah?

It’s your life and god knows it’s impossible to live life right now without coming into contact with AI somehow. I’m not sitting on an idealistic high horse saying all AI must be boycotted. That would be entirely unrealistic.

But for me AI, in most of its forms, is in opposition to my personal core values because it is a tool of a capitalist system that is proven—time and again, at this point—to be wholly unsustainable longterm.

Is it really that deep?

Well, it is to me.

I mean, I believe in preserving the planet for the coming generations rather than allowing this capitalist wet dream to send our species into early oblivion.

And, no, I don’t believe that will happen but I do believe what the experts are saying about how we’re at a tipping point in history right now. I have full faith that we’re heading somewhere amazing, just not with AI at the helm.

I believe in the sanctity of life over profit margins, which means the worst part for me with the whole AI bubble BS is that the lie of AI as an inevitability is, at its core, a grift, making sure those with most of the money end up with all of the money.

Transparently so. In all of our faces so. Infuriatingly so.

The similarities between this scheme and what happened with the housing market in 2008 are insane to me.

Why is this borrowing trillions of dollars without even having a ready product to ensure this money can be paid back to the banks while there are whistleblowers and experts in the AI field itself yelling ’this can’t hold’ allowed to ever happen? How is this even possible?

Well, because the game is rigged. Obviously.

And so, where I can refuse AI in our already AI infested world, I’m going to refuse it.

My business is one aspect of life where I’m able to truly choose to keep every aspect of it AI free. My playlist is another (though I’ve heard AI songs that have been gorgeous and upon realising they’re AI have felt like a gut punch of a nope).

Personal note: The state of the world is a daily point of stress to me that is difficult to fully comprehend because it’s so big. We were perhaps not made to be connected to the entire globe at any given time and all at once. I’m grateful that we are but some days the weight of it is enough to bend you at the knees. AI is threaded through so much of the world’s deepest suffering (joblessness, food insecurity, declining education, warfare) and the fact that it was simply unleashed on us all when they knew what the implications of doing that were is also what makes me not want to touch it and why keeping my home clean of it makes me feel at least a little better, since it’s everywhere else.

I would like to reiterate that I’m very open to understanding your choice to engage with AI, if you have done so. Everyone’s story is different and everyone’s motivation is too, so if you’d like to have a conversation about it please do let me know.

That said, I would also like to make it very clear that if you’ve used AI, we chat and see eye-to-eye, and you choose to work with me as your editor, then I will request that AI as a tool in any capacity will no longer be utilised. It can’t be a part of our working relationship moving forward for all the reasons I’ve given in the paragraphs above.

That’s with total support of your right to choose what works best for you, of course. There’s no hard feelings if you decide that, actually, nice chat but I think AI makes me a better writer. We’ll part ways and be no worse for the wear.

Editor’s note: I know beyond any doubt that writing and especially going through a proper editing process of your own writing is what makes you a better writer. But of course to each their own.

If AI had been released with regulations in place, allowed to learn organically from people paid to teach it, and with proper sustainability in mind, I wouldn’t have two words to say against it. I think the tech is fascinating on many levels. But here we are.

AI is like a hungry, hungry hippo eating everything in its path at this stage, a product that’s been over-hyped and over-promised to deliver over-inflated results that have lead to real people losing real jobs in real time, wiping out whole careers that hard-working human beings have spent their lives dedicating themselves to.

We’re at the tipping point and this is where we choose whether we’re for or against our fellow creatives making a living off their own art, big or small, established or budding.

I’m for.

I want the chance to discover them. And the chance to assist in their discovery too.

How about you?