AI-generated imagery, or AI Art, has been a hot-button topic over the last few months, causing division in the art community and raising questions about the ethics of training neural networks using the library of images publically available on the internet.

Essentially, this means that artists have been forced to unwillingly—and without compensation—contribute to training the technology that may replace them.

The irony would be delicious if it weren’t so scary.

But do we truly have cause to be afraid, or should artists and authors be excited about having a new tool at our disposal? Does art require a human artist, or is the data already available on the internet enough for AI to replicate human creativity?

Would we be able to tell the difference, if it did?

Whether we view the sea of change as frightening, exciting, or both, only one thing is certain: this wave of change has not even begun to crest, and there are already others on the horizon. For authors, the next wave may look something like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

If there is one thing I know, it’s that knowledge is power, and one cannot ride a wave one cannot see. So, in the name of curiosity and forward-thinking, not to mention self-preservation, I played with ChatGPT for a while. The results were both striking, and comforting.

On the one hand, AI has made great strides in generating natural-sounding language and even creating poetry and short stories. In fact, some AI systems have already been used to co-author books and articles. However, these AI-generated works are often formulaic and lack the depth and complexity of truly creative writing.

Furthermore, the human experience is a crucial element in writing. Authors draw on their own emotions, experiences, and perspectives to create relatable and engaging works of fiction. It is difficult to imagine an AI being able to replicate this aspect of writing, as it lacks the same range of emotions and experiences that humans possess.

The creative process of writing is often messy and unpredictable. It involves brainstorming, revising, and editing, which are all difficult for AI to replicate. The unpredictable and non-linear nature of the writing process is a key part of what makes it unique and valuable.

With the desire to test this hypothesis, I gave ChatGPT several text prompts to see just how far I could push the AI’s “creativity.” Here are the results, along with the prompts used to generate them. Click and read, if you dare.

As you can see, the generated texts were all clear, concise, and clean. The blog post was absolutely spot-on as far as the advice was concerned, and the short story about the boy and his dragon friend had a neat little moral at the end.

But, at least to my mind, the writing lacked the spark of life that distinguishes a human writer. We often call that spark voice. Voice is a result of a lifetime of experience, preference, emotion, and personality. It is what distinguishes Stephen King from Colleen Hoover, and what makes books by your favorite writers feel different from ones written by anyone else.

Voice is embodied in word choice, sentence length, grammar, usage, idioms, metaphors, and all those little details writers naturally choose because they just feel right.

The AI also lacked subtlety and subtext, which are two hallmarks of strong fiction. In addition, characterization was incredibly bland, if it existed, at all. The question is: how long will it be until neural networks parse those subtleties and mix them up into some new concoction that feels original to readers?

I wish I knew the answer.

I would like to say that AI is unlikely to replace authors, altogether. The unique human experience and creativity of authors will always be necessary for creating truly compelling works of fiction. AI may be able to generate language and ideas, but it will never be able to replicate the complex and nuanced process of writing.

Maybe.

What is certain is that we need to think long and hard about the way AI will impact the creative fields, and consider what protections can be put in place to protect artists, authors, and other creatives. Because when art suffers, culture suffers, and when culture suffers, no one comes out unscathed.

Just to throw a wrench into the conversation, and because I’m a cruel, cruel person, I wrote portions of this blog post with AI.
Can you tell which parts are not in my voice?

Good luck, and may the odds be ever in your favor.