AI. Did most of us even hear of it ten years ago? I don’t remember when I first got wind of it, but I remember when I first really became aware of it. It was a few years ago in my Florida publishing group. I was on the Board, and a couple of people who were interested in, and knowledgeable about, AI joined the Board. They gave some seminars about it.
I hated it immediately, and would avoid attending any of the AI workshops at the publishing conferences. Or I would sit there and state that I didn’t even want to talk about it — and I wasn’t the only one.
Fast forward to today. I don’t have a paying account (yet), but I use Chat GPT to figure out any issues I have:
- Why have my book sales dropped so much, and what is my plan to improve sales and earn money?
- What products can I use for my insanely frizzy hair?
- Can you make up some drinks I can order at Starbucks that taste good and have fewer calories?
- When do you know it is time to put your dog down?
- What is the best way to get rid of facial wrinkles and jowls?
- Can you design a new logo for me?
- Can you design some covers for my new songs so we can publish them?
As a grammar author, do I want people to ask grammar questions of AI instead of buying my books?
As an former editor, do I want people to use AI products instead of a human editor, taking away jobs and reducing the hourly rate of human editors?
As an author, do I want people to use AI to completely write a book? (I guess researching a book using AI is OK, but still someone is probably losing out here too.)
As a songwriter, would l want other songwriters to write AI songs? And would I ever use AI to write a song or even to help me write one? (NO!!!! I would not.)
So, where do we draw the line? Apparently, it is OK to use AI to design a book cover or a book trailer. It is not OK to use AI to write your whole book. Amazon won’t print it, but do they always detect it? You can use AI to help you, but you”must” state it somewhere.
Obviously, there are messy legal implications around AI. I guess it will be a whole new specialization for copyright attorneys.
Oh, and as a former English teacher, I will say that it was always difficult enough to catch plagiarism. Now what with AI?
However, AI is inevitable. Progress is inevitable. I guess one would have to call it progress. There are many people who do not like progress and try to stop it. I am not on that particular side of the political battlefield. They would love to go back to the “good old days” of the 1950s when women were in the kitchen, there was no abortion, gay and trans people were in the closet. Sure, there were some tempting things about the past, but nothing stays still. Progress is just built into the human way of life, especially in technologically developed countries.
Streaming services, mobile phones, laptops, robotic surgery, vaccines, music synthesizers, novacaine, washing machines, fertility treatments, C sections….where would we be without them?
There are always negatives along with positives. So forward we march.
I still hate AI. But I also love it.
Is it even an oxymoron any longer?
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