artificial-intelligence – SLAMFitzsimons

writer SLAM Fitzsimons in actor’s bar, Dirty Duck, Stratford-upon-Avon

there was the recent furore around the novel ‘Shy Girl’ by mia ballard whose book was dropped by hachette after accusations of using AI in the writing of the novel. this lead to outrage pieces on both sides of the AI argument. some were saying that it was a betrayal of the publisher and readership and she should have been upfront about it before submitting. others say it shouldn’t be an issue. the story was her idea and besides we won’t be able to escape ai written books soon. we might as well embrace the technology. it is here to stay.

i tend to be on the side of keeping ai out of the writing process. that just because you came up with an idea and fed it through an algorithm does not make you a writer. writing is a process you have to go through. it is not idea then product. however this position leads to a complexity. where do we draw the line.

do i have to announce if i use the review tool in word. if i get word to check my spelling and grammar am i no longer a writer for using such a technology. should i not instead invest in a copy of a dictionary and a roget’s thesaurus? should i not painstakingly turn the pages of those books to check each word in my novel? or is such use allowed?

i would tend to allow the review tool because the ultimate decision making still lies with the writer. they have to agree or disagree with the spelling suggestions or offers of alternate words. they are still involved in the process of the writing. each word previously was written by the writer prior to using the tool. but i would draw the line after that. no more ai or tech intervention allowed in the writing process. formatting is down to you. the decision to send to an agent or editor yours. ai should definitely not be rewriting paragraphs of your work. it is to be avoided. besides it will take the liveliness out of your writing and turn it beige. all will become standard generic phrasing. the idiosyncrasies of the writer’s voice and style will be lost. rounded. smoothed down. we need the jagged edges.

so let’s all promise to be imperfect. to continue to write in an imperfect way. to produce work that was the best we could make it at the time. lets leave the jagged edges in.

let’s talk about art and the creation of art and what is art.
when people first wanted to record what they saw or happened they painted on the walls of caves with paints they created from things around them. it represented what they saw and did. then over time the technology improved. paper. canvases. but people continued to paint to show what they saw.

photography was invented and replaced painting as a technology for recording. painting became art. people used to record events on their cameras. people, places, things. until the rise of the movie camera which replaced the camera as a means to record events. so photography became art and movies became the way to record events. a new technology on the scene. this in its turn became superseded by computers. each new technology reducing the previous to art. the old technology became a means of expression. the representation of the idea.

and now we find ourselves with a new technology making redundant the old. AI. all before is reduced to art. obsolete technology the expression of art. text and image. but what of AI? some say that they create art using AI. they enter the commands and something is produced. they call it art. they claim creation. but is creation just merely the idea and the output?

when earlier artists created an artefact was it merely the output that was considered the art? the result of thought, experimentation, technique, the breaking of rules and the inventing of rules. does not the process also make the art. with AI there is no process. there is simply the input of the idea and the output. there is no experimentation with the materials, the developing of technique, the following of rules and the breaking of rules. that was all done by the artists whose work was scraped and stolen. there is no original technique and expression of process. the process is gone. bastardised. just idea and output.

am i being too hard on the AI creator? i think not. previous technologies that became art did not rely upon the stealing of the work of others. it is not an averaging of many different people’s thoughts, processes and ideas. and even when previous creators made art with dead technologies based on other creatives’ ideas they acknowledged the fact. they made reference to it. they did not claim it was solely their creation. they owned up to the great artists they were inspired by. AI artefacts make no such reference or admittance. they lie that they are original, something new. rather than an amalgamation of many creatives’ ideas.

if you want to be seen as a creator of art then engage with the process of art. take time to develop your skills. find your own voice. develop your own techniques. break the rules your way. develop your own new rules. don’t short cut and steal another’s work and claim it yours. you did not own the process. the work is not yours.