Artificial Intelligence changes the way we should think about book writing. What does a future look like where AI can generate stories or create art just as good as we can? What are the cons of AI answering all of our questions and providing instant inspiration and ideas? Will anything ever be original, or “human” again? Because of these questions and more, artificial intelligence, like ChatGPT, has become one of the most interesting topics in the book world. And it’s something that is certainly worth worrying about.
While researching for this blog, I thought about the questions mentioned above and more. While I can’t say I got satisfying answers to every question, I did learn a few things about what ChatGPT is and how we can use it as writers going forward. Here’s what we know so far about book writing and ChatGPT.
Chat GPT is a product of the company OpenAI. ChatGPT is a “chatbot” which uses a language model to interact with the user in a conversational way. It’s very easy to sign-up for OpenAI’s services, as of this writing it is offered for free during its “Research Preview” stage. You can set up your own account or simply link it to an existing account like Google. After the quick sign-up process, I was able to begin asking ChatGPT questions right away.
Positives
I asked ChatGPT what it “thought” about writers using its services to write books and stories for them. It gave me a very thorough, classic essay-style response that can best be summarized by saying, “it’s a subject of much debate.” Despite all of the debate, ChatGPT can do three important things for writers: increase productivity, provide creative ideas, and offer proofreading and editing help.
Inspiration
It’s easy to ask ChatGPT: “If you were to start a story about [xxx] how would you start it?” The chatbot will gladly give you a list of ways to start a story about a topic by giving you a paragraph or so to help get you going. These features can be beneficial if you find yourself lacking direction on a topic, or just need to get the ball rolling creatively. But it’s important to adapt these prompts to suit your writing style and the purpose of the story or essay that you're writing.
If you’re writing fiction, you could also discuss your characters with the chatbot. It can help you develop a character’s personality, background, and the character’s motivations. Discussing these topics with another person is not always possible or perhaps can feel awkward. That being said, we shouldn’t abandon the creative feedback of our peers as it will be them, not AI, that will be reading what we write.
Language Assistance
Instead of just relying on the spellcheck built into your word processor, you can also ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT to spell or grammar check a portion of your own written text. It will then send a corrected version to you. ChatGPT can also relay information and advice on sentence structure. If there are no “grammatically incorrect” sentences, it may just change a few words to improve the readability and clarity of the selection of text.
Productivity
Thanks to ChatGPT’s instant responses, it can certainly help cut down on time you may spend researching a question. You can ask it “what date did [xxx] happen?” and you will get an answer with some additional context without having to leave the page. Or you can ask it how to cite a novel in MLA style and it will provide you with the format to do so. These features of ChatGPT may help streamline the writing process.
Concerns
While ChatGPT can offer benefits for writers, there are still potential dangers of writers relying on AI to help them.
Originality
ChatGPT has access to everything written on the internet, but it doesn’t provide the same kind of authenticity that a person can provide based on their lived experiences. Every person has a unique voice and perspective that makes a story or essay “theirs.” An AI chatbot does not possess that same individuality as it’s only generating responses based on the data and models given to it.
Emotional Understanding
Regardless of how conversational and “natural” ChatGPT can seem in its responses, the chatbot does not have emotions or personal experiences to draw upon. One of the most important aspects of writing is its ability to connect humans through shared emotional experiences. While ChatGPT’s ability to generate responses based on patterns and information it’s been trained on is impressive, it shouldn’t replace our own unique ability to infuse emotion into our stories.
Legal Considerations
This last concern is one of the most important for authors. ChatGPT is technically considered the intellectual property of OpenAI. The responses and stories that the chatbot produces are the result of a combination of licensed data, text generated by its “human trainers,” and of course, publicly available data on the internet. OpenAI holds the intellectual property rights to the use and configuration of these data.
Conclusion
It may be best to treat ChatGPT as nothing more than a powerful tool to aid in the writing process, but it may be smart to tread lightly if you find yourself using it more often than not. The human experience is unique, layered, and specific to the individual; AI should not replace a writer’s unique, human touch.
What are your thoughts on ChatGPT? Let us know in the comments!
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