My contracts with my publishers don't allow them or me to use AI for anything, and that's the way I want it. Besides all of the obvious issues, I write because I get *pleasure* out of it--and solace and understanding and all kinds of other benefits. I am not "outsourcing" any of that. - ThreadSky

jeffvandermeer.bsky.social • 78 days ago

My contracts with my publishers don't allow them or me to use AI for anything, and that's the way I want it. Besides all of the obvious issues, I write because I get *pleasure* out of it--and solace and understanding and all kinds of other benefits. I am not "outsourcing" any of that.

Reposted from Anne Oeldorf-Hirsch, PhD

Is anyone else just *not interested* in using AI for their writing? All accuracy and morality aside, I just don't want to. I want every last word I put on a page to have flowed out from my own body. Maybe I'm romanticizing it, but I just can't see it any other way.

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bycolinholmes.bsky.social•78 days ago

I have a friend who is not a writer but has an "idea" for a novel. He is wild about the idea that AI can write out his idea and is three or four AI-produced drafts polishing "his" work. We debate all the time that it's AI's novel, not his.

People like him are going to be driving this mess.

dwsheridan.bsky.social•78 days ago

I’m using it a bit for research and it saves some time in that area. I would burn this world to a cinder before I’d ever allow it to write anything that I’d then be expected to put my name to.

ricst.bsky.social•78 days ago

AI is to intelligent writing what Applebees is to restaurants. Yea, it's got the calories and it's not expensive, but it's relatively tasteless, boring and pretty much always the same

jesuschrysler.bsky.social•78 days ago

At least applebees doesn't ransack other restaurants for ingredients.

russbengtson.bsky.social•78 days ago

i want AI to do like, anything else but that

jarodkanderson.bsky.social•78 days ago

Yes. Likewise.

emilymandel.bsky.social•78 days ago

I’ve had AI come up on panels a couple times recently, as in “Tell us the truth Emily, have you ever used AI to generate text,” like some kind of gotcha moment, and it’s bizarre to me. If I didn’t like generating my own text, I’d probably seek out a different job?

rzsantos.bsky.social•78 days ago

Sounds like that's a "writer" who's using AI and is looking for validation. I've also gotten the "but it's okay for editing...right?"

aktange.bsky.social•77 days ago

EXACTLY. People look at me like I'm nuts when I say this. But why would writers/artists/humans want to farm out the parts of our creative lives that are wonderful? What are we saving that time for?

emilymandel.bsky.social•76 days ago

Great point. The parts of my job that aren’t writing are like managing my calendar and taxes and trying to figure out my childcare plan for next week and booking flights for work trips. I… don’t want to set aside more time to do those things.

scalzi.com•78 days ago

I'd have to spend more time editing the crap an LLM generates than just writing the stuff out myself

emilymandel.bsky.social•78 days ago

Yeah no kidding, writing prose myself is probably easier

thisbrokenwheel.bsky.social•78 days ago

I actually just had to have this argument - and then demonstrate that this is the case - on a project for my day job.

kwtaylor.bsky.social•78 days ago

I’m considering doing a study on this, like recruiting advanced creative writing students to do multiple experiments first on analyzing human vs. AI written prose with the same prompt and with a limited time frame to draft, then time spent revising the AI prose vs. the human prose.

yasminegalenorn.bsky.social•78 days ago

I've been in this biz for 28 years. The last thing I'm want is to drive away the readers who support me by feeding a handful of vague ideas into an AI engine and slapping the resulting crap up. Most authors I know, incl me, take pride in our reputations. That we have to defend ourselves is bullshit.

jginsburg.bsky.social•78 days ago

THIS EXACTLY, fuck it takes twice as long to fix what automatic systems fuck up then just doing it myself

jeffvandermeer.bsky.social•78 days ago

Wow. Yeah, that's in a kind of mode of question, too, right? As if the person asking has made up their mind about something about you and if you don't confess you're just obfuscating.

wesfeldman.bsky.social•78 days ago

Do these people assume that because they use generative AI, everyone does too?

steadynappin.bsky.social•78 days ago

next time hit em in the face w a copy of “oblique strategies”

nick.goede.cc•78 days ago

I see this in software development too. There are people that don't seem to understand why I don't find "AI" tools useful in my job.

preraphsrule.bsky.social•77 days ago

Truth. Writing is embodied, communal and material - we don't all start weeping in my carers' poetry workshops because we're watching LLMs regurgitate.

muninnherself.bsky.social•78 days ago

I know there's all that 'hate writing love having written' stuff but I ... love writing. I love editing, too. I write for fun, to entertain myself. If other people want to read it (sometimes they do!) that's great. I enjoy being paid to do it. But basically it's the most fun I can have by myself.

chayab77.bsky.social•78 days ago

It just sounds nightmarish. Ghoulish, in the literal sense, to surrender one's own voice/ spontaneous thoughts/ hopes/ images...to some sort of machine.
Doesn't it really sound like letting It think for you like in A Wrinkle in Time (nb: a beautiful novel written long before AI, BY ONE PERSON).

tgunter.bsky.social•78 days ago

I've been thinking about boycotting publishers like HarperCollins who are making deals with AI companies, but don't want to hurt authors who signed publishing deals with them prior. Do you have any thoughts on this topic from your perspective as an author?

kderbyshire.bsky.social•78 days ago

In another forum, someone compared using AI to "write" a book to using a bicycle to "run" a marathon. It entirely misses the whole point.

planecrazy.bsky.social•77 days ago

The only writing I would ever use AI for is the boilerplate, business-speak shit of status reports and other mindless drivel we are still forced to produce. That's actually what it was designed for, but then they found it could "creatively" write better than the engineers and they got excited. 🙄

twintergreen.bsky.social•77 days ago

*cries in engineering* But I agree. I'm not personally too worried that AI will be a replacement for good books. What I fear is that those with money just won't care and we already know that if it's only cheap 💩 that is available, people eventually won't know to ask for any better.

jeffvandermeer.bsky.social•78 days ago

To some degree, the commodification of culture has resulted in a misunderstanding of the uses and application of the imagination.

wisco-disco.bsky.social•78 days ago

That is a profoundly depressing sentence

tcparker.bsky.social•78 days ago

The framing of books, films, TV and other expressive/communicative media as "content" - and creative resources like writing and design as "content-making" has been unbelievably corrosive. And absolutely has opened the door to the stochastic parrots

mrmandell8.bsky.social•78 days ago

Exactly. No interest in AI whatsoever.

talesfrompurgatory.bsky.social•78 days ago

Using AI for help writing is like sending AI on vacation for you. “No thanks, I have work to do. Send the bot to experience Crete for me.”

rattyratfink.bsky.social•78 days ago

My brain is my writing program and it doesn't pollute the planet 🤙

jasonmlight.bsky.social•77 days ago

I saw a blurb from a writer promoting some AI platform or another. It said, “For those of us who don’t like to write.” What?

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