The idea of using AI for fanfiction hurt me. Moments like that are for realizing you need to be the change you want to see and write the fanfiction yourself. Like you said, AI is soulless. Sure it can come up with decent enough work, but why read something no one was bothered to write, ya know?
I dig it myself...have read half a dozen or so Max Headroom stories I generated just for something to read for fun. I miss Max Headroom :( Sire I could write my own but then there's no fun in reading it....well at least not the same.
Is she using the bot as a ghostwriter or as a collaborator? It sounds like she started out using it as a ghostwriter and then got involved in actually revising what it wrote. Whether she realizes it or not, she is learning to become a writer. She was already a reader or watcher of stories. That is why she was looking for fanfiction in the first place. So, now, she is learning that the quality of what the bot writes is not as satisfying as she would like. Welcome to the world of writing.
I do have a tendency to look at the glass half full, and when it comes to technology, I am curious how we will use it. I have my own issues with celebrities claiming to write books that are penned by someone unknown to us, so I won't be surprised if ghostwriters start getting concerned about bots taking over their jobs. Who knows, they may be interviewing the celeb and then writing prompts to create a story that sounds like the celeb wrote it.
We writers are feeling the impact of the DIY reader, the way bakers argued that a cake mix isn't a real homemade cake. Someday, your roomie may come to you and ask you to read a passage or chapter and give her advice on how to make it better. At that point, you will decide if you want to help create a real writer or not.The lesson for all of us is this. If we don't do our best, someone might create their own version of our story and be perfectly content reading that instead.
all very valid thoughts!! to be honest I'm not 100% sure how she's utilizing Chat GPT these days or if she even still is, she may have abandoned the hobby already as she's a bit prone to do. however i do like your perspective of LEARNING to write from AI, it is definitely possible, i mean i learned more than half my day job using it!
Imagine a future (tomorrow) where students engage AI to create the world they want to visit or inhabit and then learn to make it real. Oh, maybe it is here already.
I'm sure we're less than 3 years away from someone prompting a game that can be completely created by AI. It would start out as exploration type games where there's minimal reaction with the environment, but it will progress to full scale games not long after that.
This is an interesting perspective! However, because of the way collaboration with AI currently works, it’s not actually making her that much better. It’s making her reliant on it. While she may be a more active writer now, the best training a writer can have is to just write. I DO think that AI can be a good editor and collaborator after you write. Sometimes, it’s helpful to have it read your work and try to offer a perspective so u can check for clarity. I think drafting, however, should remain a completely DIY experience because AI is currently not designed to support the creative experience and it just becomes cognitive overload and reliance.
She's not learning HOW to write. She's seeing decent writing demonstrated to her. BIIIIG difference. She might get good at aping styles, or structure, but she won't learn about the instinctual decisions that make a good writer, or what storytelling requires of the teller, or so many other elements of the craft.
I am so intrigued by this discussion. I thought of a futuristic world, like Fahrenheit 451, where books are banned, but the only storytelling is by AI, so it is a derivative of the long-forgotten source. Would people learn to write unique stories, or would they ape what they have learned?
Well, you don't learn "the instinctual decisions that make a good writer, or what storytelling requires of the teller, or so many other elements of the craft" by just typing a bunch of sentences on a keyboard either. It comes by studying the craft of writing and storytelling and rhetorical devices.
I love this reply! I can totally see the arc from reader to writer via use of AI. (by the way, I started using "the arc from..." because I liked it when I saw GPT do it.)
I use chat gpt to help me proofread my chapters in case I missed some spelling mistakes even after reading it like 10 times. (Or I use grammarly) But writing a whole story ? 🤨 I don’t understand the point. But oh well to each their own I guess.
I asked ChatGPT to do that once out of curiosity, and it's (predictably) a very formulaic writer. It's actually kind of comical to read what it spits out. It will be less comical if that ever changes...
I did it once too when I used to write fanfictions. Usually ChatGPT even if you give him instructions on the creative side he’ll mix everything. And repeats himself a lot. 😂 so using him for that is a lot more work than just writing it yourself. Choose peace 😂 not a migraine.
AI is GREAT for efficiency when creativity is not needed. For example, I use it for back-of-the-house stuff like chapter summaries so I can keep all my shit organized as I—too—work on my first book. It saves me time.
But for the love of all that's holy, I will never understand why anyone who holds themselves up as a writer would use it for the creative aspects of their writing, like the prose. The prose is actually the fun stuff, let alone the character and scene creations!
wholeheartedly agree!!! there is a time and place when AI can be very useful to writers, just as it's useful to others as well. i also find the most fun in the creativity though! glad to hear you feel the same!!
Yesterday, I used ChatGPT to help me fix up my resume. When I read the revisions it made, I realized one thing, it felt empty. While it did reword the text eloquently, I felt a sudden sadness at the fact that the work I was so proud of was evidently being erased to fit a structure I didn’t like. It made me even more baffling since it only changed a few words.
Art is a form of expression that feeds the human soul. It goes much deeper than colors on a canvas and words on paper. That’s the very essence that AI cannot replicate. I hope your roommate gets to enjoy the pleasures of unbridled passion that true writing can offer.
This essay has also gotten me curious about testing whether the general public would favor a AI generated publication rather than human made if they were made unaware. It would be an interesting subject to explore.
it WOULD be interesting to explore!! but i think we'd find there are so many differing results. chat gpt has pretty much one skill level. humans have varying skill levels, some are amazing at writing dialogue, some scenery, some can create better sentence flow and EVERYONE has a unique voice. meaning, I'm sure some people would prefer the AI written work than the human one, and some wouldn't, depending on their personal preferences and what kind of passage they're comparing it against!
Well, I tried and won't sign for that experiment again. Even when used as a joke about an AI generated story it still bothered me too bad to enjoy the joke or read the whole thing. Had to skip to comments and get my fun there...
Your roommate is smart but also pretty dumb. Personally, I wouldn't write a novel just so I could read it. I would write it to satisfy my soul and take pride in the process. I think that's the difference between real writers and ai writers
The idea of AI and creation in the same solar system never sit right with me. Teaching, revising, sure, but the act of CREATION…meaningful, soulful, and impactful creation…yeah no
It seems nowadays that art is devoid of any ethics. But ethics and aesthetics have been always joint, even if some people forgot. Well, those people are no artists, they don't know shit about art and what it implies. However they might feel is not our problem. Great read, I totally get why you get so affected by such mediocrity. Just keep being a decent human! Cheers
Well…. She’s also missed the ENTIRE point of PROCESS— the spiritual work that sitting down a writing a book provides you. I hired a ghost writer when I first started out, thinking I was best suited at making a certain kind of content and that I should “stay in my lane”. But I wanted to write ✍🏻. When I got the intro back, we were really far off in how I wanted to be precieved and heard in terms of tone and vibe. So I set out to write it myself. BEST and hardest decision ever. I launched it on Substack and then Amazon and it has been an incredible experience. I found my confidence and my voice in the process. AI cannot do that, even if it can. It tells me a lot about a person who seeks shortcuts and calls it the long road.
AI has a voice too, its brain numbingly repetitive, and if anyone else puts in the same prompts they’ll have nearly the same book.
I was in an international writing workshop and two people outsourced their peer worksheets to Chat Gpt, well guess what, they both read the exact same critique, without even realizing it bc they hadn’t written it and then, weren’t even cognizant of it!
Thank you. This gave me a perspective on Ai which I hadn’t anticipated before your post. Ai has turned her into someone pursuing creative goals, not only reading, but getting into the creative process of writing. Ai has helped inspire her somehow. Now if she finds herself wanting to read/write something of better quality she will still have to do the hard yards; just learning the skills in a different order I suppose.
Even if she quits. I spent some time learning the guitar but I eventually quit. But through that quitting I developed a greater appreciation of those who could play.
the idea that so many people are using AI for fanfiction also hurts me a lot. fanfiction, fanart, damn even headcanons!! anything that was created in fandoms, for as silly as it could be, came from a genuine passion for something. if I wrote a book I would probably cry tears of joy if someone put their time into creating something related to it. that's the magic of fandoms! people are passionate about things and share their passion with other people! so, in my opinion, using AI to create fanart or fanfiction just defeats the whole purpose of fandom culture. I've actually been thinking about writing about this for a few weeks now.
100% i completely agree!! fanfiction and fan art is still ART and therefore i still think human-created is far better and more ethical than anything generated by AI. you should write about it if you're passionate about it girl!!!
I've been chipping away at a story in my free time for about nine years now, and the long process of it is as much a source of enjoyment as any thoughts of eventually finishing it. Taking a few days to puzzle out a series of events, a reason for a characters actions, the histories, locations, and pages, and everything else that needs to be pondered is what provides me joy in writing, I just can't see the appeal of clicking a button to generate it all.
It’s tempting to want to take the short way around and get someone (or something) else to do the work for you. I get stuck (last week set aside one WIP to start another because I couldn’t figure out where I wanted the story to go)… but what she’s doing isn’t the same as using a thesaurus when you can’t find the right word, or having autocorrect fix that misspelled word.
Sure, it spits out what she wants (or she tweaks and shifts it to get there) but is it worth it? Maybe for some, but not for me.
I bend and twist my thoughts into a story… hyperfixating and seeing inspiration everywhere I look. To me, it’s not necessarily about the finished product but giving my mind a release through the process. When I’m not creating (art of any kind) I feel unfulfilled.
So, if that’s what she wants to do, good on her, I guess. But I’d much rather stare at a painting and see the blood, sweat, and tears a human put into it than a computer generated image.
Completely agree with you! And I think this is the reason that there will always continue to be a market for human art. Those of us who are creators will always create for the joy of doing so. And there will always be people out there who appreciate that joy in others!
The idea of using AI for fanfiction hurt me. Moments like that are for realizing you need to be the change you want to see and write the fanfiction yourself. Like you said, AI is soulless. Sure it can come up with decent enough work, but why read something no one was bothered to write, ya know?
could not agree more!!
I loved that, “why read something no one was bothered to write” this is truth on so many levels.
EZ: just have your AI read it instead.
I dig it myself...have read half a dozen or so Max Headroom stories I generated just for something to read for fun. I miss Max Headroom :( Sire I could write my own but then there's no fun in reading it....well at least not the same.
YES ... my time is precious and short. if I give it... i want to give it to another person that gave their time too.
Is she using the bot as a ghostwriter or as a collaborator? It sounds like she started out using it as a ghostwriter and then got involved in actually revising what it wrote. Whether she realizes it or not, she is learning to become a writer. She was already a reader or watcher of stories. That is why she was looking for fanfiction in the first place. So, now, she is learning that the quality of what the bot writes is not as satisfying as she would like. Welcome to the world of writing.
I do have a tendency to look at the glass half full, and when it comes to technology, I am curious how we will use it. I have my own issues with celebrities claiming to write books that are penned by someone unknown to us, so I won't be surprised if ghostwriters start getting concerned about bots taking over their jobs. Who knows, they may be interviewing the celeb and then writing prompts to create a story that sounds like the celeb wrote it.
We writers are feeling the impact of the DIY reader, the way bakers argued that a cake mix isn't a real homemade cake. Someday, your roomie may come to you and ask you to read a passage or chapter and give her advice on how to make it better. At that point, you will decide if you want to help create a real writer or not.The lesson for all of us is this. If we don't do our best, someone might create their own version of our story and be perfectly content reading that instead.
all very valid thoughts!! to be honest I'm not 100% sure how she's utilizing Chat GPT these days or if she even still is, she may have abandoned the hobby already as she's a bit prone to do. however i do like your perspective of LEARNING to write from AI, it is definitely possible, i mean i learned more than half my day job using it!
Imagine a future (tomorrow) where students engage AI to create the world they want to visit or inhabit and then learn to make it real. Oh, maybe it is here already.
I'm sure we're less than 3 years away from someone prompting a game that can be completely created by AI. It would start out as exploration type games where there's minimal reaction with the environment, but it will progress to full scale games not long after that.
Oh, that's already being done, there's small competitions and whatnot too.
Now, they're very rudimentary games, don't get me wrong, but they'll be getting better and better very quickly. Itch.io is one place to find them.
This is an interesting perspective! However, because of the way collaboration with AI currently works, it’s not actually making her that much better. It’s making her reliant on it. While she may be a more active writer now, the best training a writer can have is to just write. I DO think that AI can be a good editor and collaborator after you write. Sometimes, it’s helpful to have it read your work and try to offer a perspective so u can check for clarity. I think drafting, however, should remain a completely DIY experience because AI is currently not designed to support the creative experience and it just becomes cognitive overload and reliance.
She's not learning HOW to write. She's seeing decent writing demonstrated to her. BIIIIG difference. She might get good at aping styles, or structure, but she won't learn about the instinctual decisions that make a good writer, or what storytelling requires of the teller, or so many other elements of the craft.
I am so intrigued by this discussion. I thought of a futuristic world, like Fahrenheit 451, where books are banned, but the only storytelling is by AI, so it is a derivative of the long-forgotten source. Would people learn to write unique stories, or would they ape what they have learned?
Well, you don't learn "the instinctual decisions that make a good writer, or what storytelling requires of the teller, or so many other elements of the craft" by just typing a bunch of sentences on a keyboard either. It comes by studying the craft of writing and storytelling and rhetorical devices.
I love this reply! I can totally see the arc from reader to writer via use of AI. (by the way, I started using "the arc from..." because I liked it when I saw GPT do it.)
I use chat gpt to help me proofread my chapters in case I missed some spelling mistakes even after reading it like 10 times. (Or I use grammarly) But writing a whole story ? 🤨 I don’t understand the point. But oh well to each their own I guess.
I asked ChatGPT to do that once out of curiosity, and it's (predictably) a very formulaic writer. It's actually kind of comical to read what it spits out. It will be less comical if that ever changes...
I did it once too when I used to write fanfictions. Usually ChatGPT even if you give him instructions on the creative side he’ll mix everything. And repeats himself a lot. 😂 so using him for that is a lot more work than just writing it yourself. Choose peace 😂 not a migraine.
AI is GREAT for efficiency when creativity is not needed. For example, I use it for back-of-the-house stuff like chapter summaries so I can keep all my shit organized as I—too—work on my first book. It saves me time.
But for the love of all that's holy, I will never understand why anyone who holds themselves up as a writer would use it for the creative aspects of their writing, like the prose. The prose is actually the fun stuff, let alone the character and scene creations!
wholeheartedly agree!!! there is a time and place when AI can be very useful to writers, just as it's useful to others as well. i also find the most fun in the creativity though! glad to hear you feel the same!!
Yesterday, I used ChatGPT to help me fix up my resume. When I read the revisions it made, I realized one thing, it felt empty. While it did reword the text eloquently, I felt a sudden sadness at the fact that the work I was so proud of was evidently being erased to fit a structure I didn’t like. It made me even more baffling since it only changed a few words.
Art is a form of expression that feeds the human soul. It goes much deeper than colors on a canvas and words on paper. That’s the very essence that AI cannot replicate. I hope your roommate gets to enjoy the pleasures of unbridled passion that true writing can offer.
This essay has also gotten me curious about testing whether the general public would favor a AI generated publication rather than human made if they were made unaware. It would be an interesting subject to explore.
it WOULD be interesting to explore!! but i think we'd find there are so many differing results. chat gpt has pretty much one skill level. humans have varying skill levels, some are amazing at writing dialogue, some scenery, some can create better sentence flow and EVERYONE has a unique voice. meaning, I'm sure some people would prefer the AI written work than the human one, and some wouldn't, depending on their personal preferences and what kind of passage they're comparing it against!
Well, I tried and won't sign for that experiment again. Even when used as a joke about an AI generated story it still bothered me too bad to enjoy the joke or read the whole thing. Had to skip to comments and get my fun there...
people have actually already been shown to like ai generated poetry more than human work
Your roommate is smart but also pretty dumb. Personally, I wouldn't write a novel just so I could read it. I would write it to satisfy my soul and take pride in the process. I think that's the difference between real writers and ai writers
totally agree!! it's the process and everything you learn along the way that makes it worth doing
The idea of AI and creation in the same solar system never sit right with me. Teaching, revising, sure, but the act of CREATION…meaningful, soulful, and impactful creation…yeah no
It seems nowadays that art is devoid of any ethics. But ethics and aesthetics have been always joint, even if some people forgot. Well, those people are no artists, they don't know shit about art and what it implies. However they might feel is not our problem. Great read, I totally get why you get so affected by such mediocrity. Just keep being a decent human! Cheers
thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts as well!!
"But ethics and aesthetics have been always joint, even if some people forgot." Thank you, Marina. This sheds some light for me.
My pleasure!🥰
Well…. She’s also missed the ENTIRE point of PROCESS— the spiritual work that sitting down a writing a book provides you. I hired a ghost writer when I first started out, thinking I was best suited at making a certain kind of content and that I should “stay in my lane”. But I wanted to write ✍🏻. When I got the intro back, we were really far off in how I wanted to be precieved and heard in terms of tone and vibe. So I set out to write it myself. BEST and hardest decision ever. I launched it on Substack and then Amazon and it has been an incredible experience. I found my confidence and my voice in the process. AI cannot do that, even if it can. It tells me a lot about a person who seeks shortcuts and calls it the long road.
You mean “write.” Cool article! Fuck AI.
AI has a voice too, its brain numbingly repetitive, and if anyone else puts in the same prompts they’ll have nearly the same book.
I was in an international writing workshop and two people outsourced their peer worksheets to Chat Gpt, well guess what, they both read the exact same critique, without even realizing it bc they hadn’t written it and then, weren’t even cognizant of it!
a very very good point as well!!!
That's so funny!
yes, funny, sad, embarrassing, I could go on… ;)
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at this. Both?
Either way, I like your writing style!
omg thank you so much!! it means a lot! and trust me, i did not know whether to laugh or cry either haha
Thank you. This gave me a perspective on Ai which I hadn’t anticipated before your post. Ai has turned her into someone pursuing creative goals, not only reading, but getting into the creative process of writing. Ai has helped inspire her somehow. Now if she finds herself wanting to read/write something of better quality she will still have to do the hard yards; just learning the skills in a different order I suppose.
100% and I do hope that's the direction she decides to take it, rather than quitting when the hard parts come!
Even if she quits. I spent some time learning the guitar but I eventually quit. But through that quitting I developed a greater appreciation of those who could play.
the idea that so many people are using AI for fanfiction also hurts me a lot. fanfiction, fanart, damn even headcanons!! anything that was created in fandoms, for as silly as it could be, came from a genuine passion for something. if I wrote a book I would probably cry tears of joy if someone put their time into creating something related to it. that's the magic of fandoms! people are passionate about things and share their passion with other people! so, in my opinion, using AI to create fanart or fanfiction just defeats the whole purpose of fandom culture. I've actually been thinking about writing about this for a few weeks now.
100% i completely agree!! fanfiction and fan art is still ART and therefore i still think human-created is far better and more ethical than anything generated by AI. you should write about it if you're passionate about it girl!!!
i’m very serious about fandoms and fandom culture so I might do it this week tbh.
Please do. Fandom is so precious!
I've been chipping away at a story in my free time for about nine years now, and the long process of it is as much a source of enjoyment as any thoughts of eventually finishing it. Taking a few days to puzzle out a series of events, a reason for a characters actions, the histories, locations, and pages, and everything else that needs to be pondered is what provides me joy in writing, I just can't see the appeal of clicking a button to generate it all.
completely agree!!! I'm glad you're enjoying it, best of luck with the rest of your writing journey :)
Same to you! Keep on tapping! :D
It’s tempting to want to take the short way around and get someone (or something) else to do the work for you. I get stuck (last week set aside one WIP to start another because I couldn’t figure out where I wanted the story to go)… but what she’s doing isn’t the same as using a thesaurus when you can’t find the right word, or having autocorrect fix that misspelled word.
Sure, it spits out what she wants (or she tweaks and shifts it to get there) but is it worth it? Maybe for some, but not for me.
I bend and twist my thoughts into a story… hyperfixating and seeing inspiration everywhere I look. To me, it’s not necessarily about the finished product but giving my mind a release through the process. When I’m not creating (art of any kind) I feel unfulfilled.
So, if that’s what she wants to do, good on her, I guess. But I’d much rather stare at a painting and see the blood, sweat, and tears a human put into it than a computer generated image.
Completely agree with you! And I think this is the reason that there will always continue to be a market for human art. Those of us who are creators will always create for the joy of doing so. And there will always be people out there who appreciate that joy in others!