Artificial Intelligence: What Can It Reveal About Itself?
Guest author L.N. Hunter provides more observations about AI. See also some of his other guest posts:
AI Is Making Me Lie: One Writer’s Opinion — Do You Agree?
How Critique Sites Can Help Any Writer, Amateur or Pro
What Do Americans Have Against the Letter “U” Anyway?
L.N. hails from the UK; therefore his grammar and spelling is based on UK English.
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What Does AI Have to Say for Itself?
Following my last post, someone suggested seeing what AI itself had to say on the matter of publishers protesting the use of AI, so off I went down that rabbit hole.
There are many generative AI services, but they’re all much of a muchness. I happened to choose Microsoft’s Copilot, but I’ll include prompts here so that people can try others and see what you get. There is some randomness in the service, and you (probably) won’t get the same result for the same query on the same system (e.g., the same prompt would sometimes produce prose and other times a bullet list; I tried biasing it one way or the other by using the words ‘article’ and ‘essay,’ but those seemed to make no difference). Something else to bear in mind is that these systems ‘remember’ previous queries within a session, so giving the prompts in a different order could affect the results.
The first query that produced a vaguely satisfactory response was: ‘write a 300-word article on publishers refusing to accept ai-generated stories, with references’ — I found that the final two words were sometimes necessary to ensure I got links, though I could be letting myself get fooled by the randomness I mentioned earlier. The result was:
The Standoff Between AI-Generated Content and Publishers
The literary world is currently grappling with the implications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in creative writing, particularly the acceptance of AI-generated stories by publishers. This article examines the reasons behind publishers’ reluctance to embrace such content.
Authenticity and Quality Concerns: Publishers have long championed the authenticity that comes from human writers. AI-generated stories often lack the nuanced understanding of human emotions and experiences that are the hallmark of great literature. The concern is that AI cannot match the depth and quality of stories that originate from human intellect and creativity.
Legal and Ethical Challenges: AI-generated content raises complex legal and ethical issues. The question of authorship and copyright is particularly thorny, as it’s unclear who owns the rights to content created by AI. This uncertainty makes publishers wary of accepting AI-generated stories, as it could lead to legal disputes over intellectual property.
Market and Reader Expectations: Publishers are also mindful of market expectations and the preferences of their readership. There is a general consensus that readers seek a connection with the author, which is absent in AI-generated works. Publishers are concerned that flooding the market with AI-generated stories could dilute the value of literature and alienate readers.
Precedents and Policies: Recent incidents have highlighted the risks associated with AI-generated content. For instance, Amazon had to remove books falsely attributed to author Jane Friedman, which were suspected to be AI-generated. In response to such controversies, Amazon has introduced new rules requiring self-publishers to declare if content is AI-generated.
Conclusion: The reluctance of publishers to accept AI-generated stories is rooted in concerns over authenticity, legal and ethical challenges, market expectations, and the need to maintain trust with readers. As AI technology continues to evolve, it will be crucial for the publishing industry to develop clear policies and guidelines to address these concerns. The goal is to ensure that the integrity of literature is preserved while navigating the new frontiers opened up by AI.
This did a reasonable job of doing a web search and summarising the results, and I can see generative AI saving research time.
My original post was a bit of a rant and a quibble about the wording of the declaration of no AI, so I requeried with modifiers such as ‘with humour’ or ‘with snark,’ but the results weren’t particularly satisfactory.
I Tried Something Much More Specific:
‘Publishers have recently started to ask fiction submitters to declare that they’ve used no AI in their writing. However, people forget they are already using AI in the form of spelling and grammar checkers. Perhaps the real issue is that publishers are concerned about LLMs being used to write stories, but this is not what they’re asking writers to comply with. Write a 300-word essay on the uses of AI in creative writing and people’s concerns, with detailed examples and references.’
The Result:
The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in creative writing has been a double-edged sword. On one hand, AI has become an invaluable tool for writers, assisting with grammar, spelling, and even stylistic suggestions through applications like Grammarly. These AI-driven tools have become so ingrained in the writing process that their use is often overlooked as a form of AI assistance.
However, the advent of more advanced AI, particularly Large Language Models (LLMs) like GPT-3, has raised eyebrows in the publishing industry. LLMs have the capability to draft entire narratives, which blurs the line between human and machine-generated content. This has led publishers to request declarations from authors that their submissions are AI-free, specifically targeting the use of LLMs in story creation.
The concerns are multifaceted. There’s the fear of a deluge of AI-generated content flooding the market, potentially diminishing the value of human creativity. Additionally, there’s the worry about plagiarism and originality. If an AI produces a story based on patterns it has learned from existing literature, can the result truly be considered original? And what about the ethical implications of using AI to mimic human creativity?
Despite these concerns, AI’s role in creative writing isn’t all doom and gloom. AI can inspire writers by suggesting plot twists or character developments, which might not have occurred to them otherwise. It can also help overcome writer’s block and generate ideas for stories, providing a springboard for human creativity.
In conclusion, while AI has undeniably become a useful tool in the writer’s arsenal, the publishing industry’s concerns about LLMs crafting entire narratives are not unfounded. The challenge lies in finding a balance where AI can support and enhance human creativity without crossing the line into replacing it. As the technology evolves, so too must the conversation around its role in the creative process.
Again, Not Quite What I Wanted
I tried a different tack: ‘write a 200-word essay about publishers requiring submitters of creative writing to declare that no ai was used in their writing, with references.’
The Response:
The publishing industry is at a crossroads with the advent of AI in creative writing. Publishers are now requiring authors to declare that their submissions are devoid of AI assistance, a move that underscores the tension between technological innovation and traditional creative values.
This mandate comes in the wake of concerns about the authenticity of AI-generated content. While AI can enhance the writing process, offering grammar corrections and stylistic suggestions, its ability to generate entire narratives has raised questions about originality and authorship. Publishers are taking a stand to preserve the human element in literature, ensuring that the stories they bring to the world are born from genuine human experience and creativity.
The requirement for an AI-free declaration is not without controversy. Critics point out that writers have always used tools to aid their writing, and AI is simply the latest iteration. They argue that AI can be a powerful ally for writers, helping to overcome creative blocks and enrich their storytelling.
Despite the debate, the move by publishers reflects a commitment to upholding the integrity of human creativity. As AI continues to evolve, it will be interesting to see how the relationship between technology and the arts develops. For now, publishers are drawing a line, ensuring that the heart of storytelling remains distinctly human.
Actually, That’s Not Too Bad
And maybe if I increased the word count, it’d be better (but that would make this article very long). There’s an art to prompt engineering — tweaking the query to get exactly the results you want, but I suspect that tuning the query precisely could be as much work as writing the article, similar to creating a 1:1 scale model of something.
There you have it, what AI thinks of restrictions on AI in writing. It takes a lot of effort to produce the perfect result, if that’s possible at all, and I didn’t have the patience to go any farther than this. I think current generative AI systems do a reasonable job of web searching and summarising results, but the writing itself hardly sparkles. I’ve not played with writing fiction, but evidence from others (see some of the links in the snippets above) suggests it’s rather dull and uninspiring — at least with today’s level of technology.
Finally: this was the first, and probably last, time I’ll publish writing generated by AI.
© L.N. Hunter and everyone who contributed to Copilot’s training data
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About L.N. Hunter
L.N. Hunter’s comic fantasy novel, The Feather and the Lamp (Three Ravens Publishing), sits alongside works in anthologies such as the BSFA award-winning Best of British Science Fiction 2022, as well as several issues of Short Édition’s Short Circuit and the Horrifying Tales of Wonder podcast. There have also been papers in the IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks, which are probably somewhat less relevant and definitely less entertaining. When not writing, L.N. occasionally masquerades as a software developer or can be found unwinding in a disorganised home in Carlisle, UK, along with two cats and a soulmate.
Get in touch via https://linktr.ee/l.n.hunter or https://www.facebook.com/L.N.Hunter.writer
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A fascinating post, Kathy.
The use of things like spell checkers, Grammarly, Hemingway etc gives authors a problem. Can we honestly say that we’ve not used AI when we use these tools all the time?
I think, rather than say ‘No AI was used in the creation of this work’, publishers will need to be more specific. Not only for grammar and spelling checkers, but for research, too. If we use it for research, is that counted as ‘using AI in the creation of this work’?
Precisely my argument in last week’s post 🙂
I think those are exactly the points that L.N. is trying to express, V.M. We need specific definitions for “AI-created” and “human-created.”
A new version of ChatGPT has appeared since I wrote this, and Google’s announced something too, all claimed to be significant improvements over what I used here. I confess I’m not sufficiently motivated to find out if these would do better in writing the snippets in this article.
What, you’re too lazy to investigate, L.N.? *wink* I’m with you.