AI Isn’t Creative

 The ongoing conversation regarding AI use in creative writing sometimes gets heated on LinkedIn. My assessment is that people who can’t really write or at least haven’t learned the skills of the craft are pro-AI. The reality is despite the emerging use (or misuse) of human quality terms to describe AI, it doesn’t really change the fact that AI can’t and doesn’t think; not on any level, and certainly not critical thinking. It’s a computerized collector of what it has been fed. It cannot discern whether that information is fact or fiction, and when it cannot find anything to respond to the prompt, it collects junk and uses that. AI has no ability to experience any of the five senses humans possess. It cannot interpret those sensual experiences into output.

A million years ago (a term I use for “quite awhile ago”) when personal computers debuted, the common saying was “Garbage in, garbage out.” That still holds true. Now it is called “AI slop” because no one wants to admit that it is garbage.

The responsibility is twofold, writers need to write. If a person “thinks” they have writer’s block (which isn’t a real thing), then real writers know that they have gone in the wrong direction with the story and need to backtrack to where they were previously making progress. Real writers don’t beat a dead horse and call it writer’s block. If the story isn’t moving forward, it is because the writing got off track. The second responsibility is with readers. Real literary lovers need to reject novels that incorporate AI slop and return the book to the vendor; tell them why the book is being returned. I’m guilty of throwing them in the recycling bin. Going forward, I am going to research the book and writer better before I make a purchase. It’s an inconvenience to return a book. But people can’t read our thoughts. If we don’t speak up, then the protest is only a feel-good moment of heaving it into the bin.

I’ve said before on my other blog, https://cactusrainpublishing.com/blog/, any product, text, visual, auditory (including music), should be required to indicate that it contains AI content. This is no different than an ingredient list on an edible product, such as cake mixes. Why not have this type of truth in labeling the content? The AI industry, the developers, doesn’t want that accountability. It’s important to them, I guess, to make their “artificial” product look real.

Consumers deserve the truth, so we can make informed decisions about our purchases.

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