A Word About AI
AI is increasingly shaping our daily lives. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt calls a shared belief among AI leaders in San Francisco the “San Francisco Consensus.” They expect AI to fundamentally transform human activity within a few years, a shift Schmidt compares to the Industrial Revolution.
Writers are already feeling this shift. While AI can quickly generate everything from marketing copy to condolence messages, it’s raising questions about originality and human authorship. Creative borrowing isn’t new. Humans have been reworking ideas since words were first scratched into clay tablets. Even literary giants borrowed from each other—some scholars question the true authorship of some Shakespeare works. T.S. Eliot’s observation, "Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal,” later gave rise to the oft-quoted maxim, “Good artists borrow, great artists steal.”
AI is also raising important legal and ethical questions. In September 2023, the Authors Guild filed a class-action lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging their AI models were trained on copyrighted works without permission. High-profile plaintiffs include bestselling authors John Grisham, George R.R. Martin, and David Baldacci. A decade earlier, Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher thrillers, blasted Baldacci’s protagonist, John Puller, as a “total bloody rip-off” of Reacher. Child settled the score in his novel Personal, where Reacher breaks the arms of a bad guy named Baldacci.
To borrow a line from Casablanca: “I’m shocked—shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!” Likewise, I’m not shocked that writers borrow from each other—just as they always have. AI is simply the newest player at the table.
AI is also changing the publishing industry. In late 2023, Amazon capped self-published authors at three Kindle ebook uploads per day, citing a surge of low-quality AI-generated books—generally how-to, health-related, and self-improvement nonfiction. Amazon also introduced disclosure rules and began blocking or removing content it detected as AI-written. Major publishing houses are increasingly adopting AI detection tools to screen for AI-generated content in manuscript submissions.
I asked ChatGPT what kinds of writing are unlikely to be replaced by AI. It replied: “AI is getting better at producing competent, surface-level writing, but there are several kinds of writing that are less likely to be replaced because they rely on qualities AI doesn’t authentically possess: lived experience, emotional depth, original perspective, and moral judgment.” Examples include memoir, journalism, and experimental writing.
Writers I know have mixed feelings about AI. Some are taking a wait-and-see approach. Others reject it outright. For me, AI is a tool—for research, grammar checks, and feedback. I think of it as a power saw compared to a hand saw: faster and more efficient, but still requiring skill and judgment. I dip into AI when I think it can help me sharpen my writing or locate obscure information. But the hard work of creation remains mine. Will the day come when we’ll be able to prompt AI to generate an original 300-page novel in the manner of a broadly published author like Stephen King? I believe it will—yet another shift.
AI and its myriad implications—both good and bad—are complicated, and this blog post would require frequent updates to keep pace with the rapidly evolving AI landscape. For now, that’s the state of the art.
Writers are already feeling this shift. While AI can quickly generate everything from marketing copy to condolence messages, it’s raising questions about originality and human authorship. Creative borrowing isn’t new. Humans have been reworking ideas since words were first scratched into clay tablets. Even literary giants borrowed from each other—some scholars question the true authorship of some Shakespeare works. T.S. Eliot’s observation, "Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal,” later gave rise to the oft-quoted maxim, “Good artists borrow, great artists steal.”
AI is also raising important legal and ethical questions. In September 2023, the Authors Guild filed a class-action lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging their AI models were trained on copyrighted works without permission. High-profile plaintiffs include bestselling authors John Grisham, George R.R. Martin, and David Baldacci. A decade earlier, Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher thrillers, blasted Baldacci’s protagonist, John Puller, as a “total bloody rip-off” of Reacher. Child settled the score in his novel Personal, where Reacher breaks the arms of a bad guy named Baldacci.
To borrow a line from Casablanca: “I’m shocked—shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!” Likewise, I’m not shocked that writers borrow from each other—just as they always have. AI is simply the newest player at the table.
AI is also changing the publishing industry. In late 2023, Amazon capped self-published authors at three Kindle ebook uploads per day, citing a surge of low-quality AI-generated books—generally how-to, health-related, and self-improvement nonfiction. Amazon also introduced disclosure rules and began blocking or removing content it detected as AI-written. Major publishing houses are increasingly adopting AI detection tools to screen for AI-generated content in manuscript submissions.
I asked ChatGPT what kinds of writing are unlikely to be replaced by AI. It replied: “AI is getting better at producing competent, surface-level writing, but there are several kinds of writing that are less likely to be replaced because they rely on qualities AI doesn’t authentically possess: lived experience, emotional depth, original perspective, and moral judgment.” Examples include memoir, journalism, and experimental writing.
Writers I know have mixed feelings about AI. Some are taking a wait-and-see approach. Others reject it outright. For me, AI is a tool—for research, grammar checks, and feedback. I think of it as a power saw compared to a hand saw: faster and more efficient, but still requiring skill and judgment. I dip into AI when I think it can help me sharpen my writing or locate obscure information. But the hard work of creation remains mine. Will the day come when we’ll be able to prompt AI to generate an original 300-page novel in the manner of a broadly published author like Stephen King? I believe it will—yet another shift.
AI and its myriad implications—both good and bad—are complicated, and this blog post would require frequent updates to keep pace with the rapidly evolving AI landscape. For now, that’s the state of the art.
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