AI Virtue Signaling
Learn what AI it is and is not capable of before decrying it
There's a lot of drama and panic surrounding AI. It’s leading to a virtue signaling by readers who don’t understand it and authors that are afraid of being replaced by it. I’ve written about AI previously, about AI Audio Books and AI fiction novels. Since writing those I’ve had more time to use and assess AI to see what its current and future capabilities will be. Suffice to say, the drama and virtue signaling is not necessary. It’s a tool, a very handy tool. And if you don’t learn to use it you will be replaced by someone that does. Avoiding AI is like choosing hardcover encyclopedias over the internet.
AI is not writing (coherent) books. Yet (And maybe not ever)
Coherent is the key word. Readers and authors alike are under the impression that the market is being flooded with AI generated books. That someone is putting a prompt into ChatGPT and getting a novel in return. “Write me a SciFi novel about space pirates. 80k length.” And then magically an 80k word long book is popped out.
That is not possible right now. And possibly not ever. Are people putting out books made entirely by AI? Sort of. YouTube as several ‘tutorials’ on using AI to write a book for you. It's a long process of using the AI to outline chapters, then using prompts to write the chapters. But what you get isn’t a coherent, readable story. What you get is a mess of redundancy and plot gaps.
A real author could use prompt craft to get AI to write for them, but they will spend more time correcting the AI’s writing than if they just wrote the story themselves.
Mediocre authors are right to be worried
You read that correctly, and it’s not a contradiction. While it’s true that AI cannot write more than a few hundred words coherently, neither can most authors. This is just an unfortunate reality. Spend some time reading self published books (or trad published before the editor got ahold of the story) and you'll see what I mean.
Note: If you really want to understand this, offer to be a beta reader for a first time author. You will read the absolute best and absolute worst stories of your life.
I’m not trying to shit on fellow authors. It’s simply true, most authors, and most books, are bad. Right now AI is in the phase of producing equally bad, predictive writing. Mediocre authors need to get better or be replaced. (Look at the corporate media, mass layoffs everywhere. It’s not because AI is that good, but rather that corporate journalists are that bad.
If ChatGPT writes better than you do, then it's a you problem. Get better or get a new career.
So what can AI do?
AI can write short bursts at a time. While there are examples of it writing whole essays, when it comes to writing a book, especially fiction, it's most effective in the 100-400 word range. This capability will increase with future upgrades.
It's a learning language model, or LLM. It’s effectively an advanced version of your cell phone's predictive text. This is why, in its current and near future forms, it won’t be writing any great books. It’s also why it's so good at short bursts of writing. When it tries to go longer, it gets lost.
But It’s Plagiarism!
One of the main negative claims used for AI is that it’s using people’s work—whether digital art, books, or voices—to learn how to create. Those who have created this anti-AI war cry are using that as the sole reason not to use this new technology, forgetting that all art gains its inspiration from somewhere. Just because AI searched through and studied other people’s craft, doesn’t mean it’s creating exact replicas of what it found. It’s using a style to create new works. In the case of authors, you’re able to command the AI to use your own body of work to learn from.
You can plagiarize yourself
This is ideal because it’s going to match your voice while writing. If it sounds like a completely different author then the flow of your story is going to be disrupted and readers are going to realize you used something to help you create your book. You want it to sound like yourself. Otherwise, what’s the point? It was mentioned before that AI can’t generate an entire book for you. So while using it, you’re going to be doing the bulk of the work. If the AI doesn’t match that, it won’t be useful to you, or make you create your art any quicker.
As AI writing tools become more personalized, you can feed all of your writing into its database. This makes the LLM, and the predictive text, based on you. Your vocabulary, your tone, your prose. How you use this is up to you.
You can use it to finish your sentences. Read through your essay or chapter and help finish out the ideas. Or you can use it to avoid predictability. Let it suggest a few paragraphs, then do the opposite of its suggestion. Use it as a tool to make yourself better.
AI Audio
Every narrator should be using AI audio software. Narrators are complaining about AI software replacing them. It is a valid concern. It takes a long time to properly record and narrate a book. You can AI narrate a book in a few hours.
The catch is that AI cannot get the tone, emotion and inflections right all the time. (Although it will surprise you with how often it gets it right.) Left to its own devices, AI will give you a product that is 70% as good as what a real narrator would produce. Considering the high cost of audio book production ($4-8k) it's easy to see why authors would turn to AI. A 70% solution that costs a few hundred dollars is a no brainer.
But narrators should get ahead of this. Record their own voices and use the AI software to produce a book. Then simply listen to the recording and re-record over the 30% that the AI gets wrong. This will cut recording time by well over 50% and bring the costs of production down as well. Despite the virtue signaling against AI Audio, I guarantee that the smart narrators are already doing this.
Get on board or get replaced
If you’re joining in the virtue signaling and trying to stall the use of AI, you’re going to get left behind. AI isn’t going anywhere. It’s only going to get better and better. For the authors and narrators who jump on the wagon now, and learn how to use it, they’ll be right at the forefront of new AI technology as it releases. Whereas those who refuse to use it will either be replaced, or woefully behind once they realize that to stay in the game they need to learn it and implement it.
For both authors and narrators the use of AI can increase your production speed. And the more books you put out, the more money can be made. Putting books out quickly and consistently keeps you in the game. Your readers will remember you and eagerly wait for your next book. If you’re only putting out one book a year, it’s hard to build a dedicated fanbase.
More than just writing
AI can help with more than just creating your book. It can help you market it as well. As I noted in Marketing for Authors, marketing is the dread of new authors. Have a hard time writing blurbs? AI can help you craft a catchy hook and blurb. It can help you write your copy writing for your ads. It can help you come up with scripts for Tiktok videos. Using AI to give you a list of FB post ideas can cut down on the time you spend trying to come up with creative content to keep your fans interested in your social media pages. It’s a great tool for creating a Newsletter. Use it to create an engaging website. The list goes on. Its especially important for new authors that don’t have the budget to hire a VA for these tasks. It’s not just about what’s inside the pages of your books. The never ending chore list self-published authors have can be tackled and conquered using AI. If you’re not afraid of it, or too virtuous.
Just like with your writing, you will always tweak the AI blubs/copy/etc. Marketing needs to be personalized to your books(or other writing). Leaving it 100% to the AI is both lazy and ineffective. But if it gets you 50% closer to a solution, that’s both time and creative energy saved.
AI will not do the work for you
Ok, so it technically can, but when you abdicate the results to AI you get garbage. The AI is only as good as the prompts going in. In other words, it takes work, skill and knowledge for AI to be effective. Learn how to use the various AI programs, and your production goes up. Virtue signal against it and you will be left behind.
Bottom Line Up Front
If you can’t write better than AI, you deserve to be replaced.
This wholly avoids what I call the AI portfolio problem. What's that?
Simple let's say an AI produces one good book, or painting, or piece of music, all well and good, but it will never produce a portfolio of works that grow and evolve over time. Why is that? Because the AI has no self awareness, in other words it cannot engage in self feedback to improve it's own style over time in a distinctive fashion with a unique artistic vision and direction.
And if you respond it is the writing of the prompt that drives the evolution of AI art, that isn't true either. Say you ask Picasso to paint a woman in a blue chair in 1903, and then you ask him again in 1932, those are going to be two very different painting, because Picasso's vision of the world has changed drastically in that time period. Ask a generative AI to paint a woman and a blue chair twice over a ten year period and you will get similar results, you certainly will not get a change in style that is mappable to a unique creative vision like you get with a human genius.
This is not to say AI art has no utility, I am using AI to generate patterns for paper cuts, but my ambitions are small, more in the commercial art and craft realm. AI "art" perhaps has some use there, but it will never produce a portfolio that evolves over time in a characteristic way showing a unique human vision.