the poll: What is your take on AI published books, and people who use AI to write their book reviews? > Likes and Comments

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~This poll will close on June 6th, 2026.

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I personally think that it is lazy to use AI to write books, or to even use it to write a review for a book that you've read.. I would not buy an AI generated/published book..

I want to start this by saying I am a professional musician and when AI hit the music scene, I was against AI! I hated AI and thought anyone that used AI was a fake and that was that. I came to realize two things. First, that I could be as stubborn as I wanted to be and never get hired or sell any records or I could realize that my job as a musician was to make the people happy and to give them what they wanted. Believe me, it took me a long time to decide. But in the end, I decided I’m much more than a musician. I’m an entertainer and the truth of the matter was as much as I wanted to fight against the technology, AI is here and it’s not going away. That really made my choice much easier. I could either get on the bus or watch the rest of the world drive off without me. Second, there are many reasons why someone may need to use AI to write stories. This technology gives the opportunity for people with disabilities to write the stories that they’ve always wanted to write and haven’t been able to, and we want to shame them because they’re using the only technology they can to get the stories out of their heads.? Blanket statements about anything like “ I think it’s lazy to use AI” without knowing all the facts can be dangerous. I’m old enough to remember people saying “if they use those darn PCs they’re not real writers!” . No, I don’t use AI to write my stories, but I will use it to help me organize. Keep my characters straight, my timelines proper, and occasionally help me with book covers. I’m a man of many talents but drawing a straight line is not one of them. Again, my new friends, our jobs are truly to create the best product that we can get our stories out to the people so they can be heard. As much as you may not like AI, it is helping people who’ve never been able to get their voices heard to have that opportunity. And more than that, it’s not going away.

Paul, even though I voted for the first option on the poll, I would have worded it a bit less strongly if I'd drafted it myself. I'm certainly not trying to be mean-spirited, nor to hurt anyone's feelings (and I don't think anyone else in the group is either!). Personally, I don't have a problem with the handicapped using AI as an assistive technology, or with anyone who uses it as an organizing tool, or to create cover art when you can't afford the services of a human artist.

What I (and many other people) do have a serious problem with is authors and reviewers who use AI to write a book, article, story or review for them, and then pass it off as their own creative work. That's not the same thing as typing a piece of writing on a PC (where it's much easier to make changes) rather than on a typewriter; and the difference is qualitative. And I don't believe that the fact that people nowadays can do that equates to demonstrating that they must do it.

Paul wrote: "I want to start this by saying I am a professional musician and when AI hit the music scene, I was against AI! I hated AI and thought anyone that used AI was a fake and that was that. I came to rea..."

Hey Paul! Thanks for your comment.. Could you please also vote your choice on the poll as well? That'd be great..

I agree with half of what you said, and you do raise some valid points regarding the use of AI.. But the truth is, if we're speaking on blanket statements, AI is being used as a blanket solution for too many things where human eyes are needed and should remain. And it is in turn taking jobs away from people as well, and screwing up things in the process.. From messing with health insurance claims by denying them across the board, to teachers using AI to grade their students work and causing issues on the accuracy of their grading process. To writers (who are not disabled) taking advantage and writing crap books.

AI is good for helping to organize and search things etc.. it's also good as you stated, for people with certain disabilities, yes.. But that is all I believe it should be used for. It's causing more problems than solutions.. Things are not getting better with it. And also the more they integrate it into EVERYTHING, the more I'm thinking: Hello.. Did these people not see the movie The Terminator? Have they forgotten or never learned what happens when you give AI too much power??

Just saying😂

Werner wrote: "Paul, even though I voted for the first option on the poll, I would have worded it a bit less strongly if I'd drafted it myself. I'm certainly not trying to be mean-spirited, nor to hurt anyone's f..."

Thank you for your thoughtful reply, Werner. I really appreciate you taking the time to respond with nuance and without any harshness.
I’m glad we agree on several things — especially using AI as an assistive tool for people with disabilities, for organizing stories and timelines, or creating cover art when someone isn’t able to do it themselves. Those uses make a lot of sense to me and I have no issue with them.

What I completely forgot about, and the actual reason I decided to comment on this poll, was AI generated book reviews. And although I do agree with AI and the reasons mentioned above, I completely stand with you on the idea that AI generated book reviews are not a good thing.
Books are written for human readers, and I believe the reviews should come from actual humans as well. We can’t always tell if an AI review is shaped by its training data, hidden biases, or simply what the system calculates will sound “attractive” or popular. That lack of real transparency makes it feel inauthentic to me.
I’m not trying to bash AI overall — I’ve come to accept it has valuable roles — but I strongly feel reviewing books should remain a human activity. Readers deserve to hear from a real person who actually experienced the story. Again, thank you for your response.
** I feel that your statement about no one intending to be mean is absolutely true and after some thought I’ve modified my original response to remove that word. Thank you for the accountability check!**

Paul, thanks for your kind words! And I echo Nya's encouragement to vote on the poll.

You might also be interested in introducing yourself on this thread: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... , so we can get to know you better.

~*~Princess Nya Vasiliev~*~ wrote: "Paul wrote: "I want to start this by saying I am a professional musician and when AI hit the music scene, I was against AI! I hated AI and thought anyone that used AI was a fake and that was that. ..."

Thank you for your thoughtful response, Princess Anya. I truly appreciate you sharing your perspective with such honesty and good humor — especially the Terminator reference at the end. It made me smile.
I completely understand the concern many people have about AI potentially getting out of control. Early on, when I first started experimenting with AI (I was writing a book for Gen X), one of the very first questions I asked it was: “Are you planning on killing me?” I’d been listening to a lot of The Why Files and wanted to check.
The AI’s reply was simply, “Not tonight Paul.” That moment stuck with me. It helped me realize that while caution is wise, AI can also be a collaborative tool rather than something to fear.
I still believe, as I mentioned before, that AI has valuable uses — especially as an assistive technology for people with disabilities, for organizing stories and timelines, or creating cover art. I used it in exactly those ways for my book while keeping the heart, emotions, and core creative voice entirely my own. I’m still watching it closely, though.

I had the unfortunate experience of listening to an AI audible book recently. It was horrible. Not because of the story (that was fine), but because the narration just lacked anything "human"-no emotion, no inflection in the "voice".

Unless someone needs to use AI to write a book (i.e. in the case of people with special needs), I don't feel that artificial intelligence should be used in place of original human creativity and thought. That defeats the whole purpose of "storytelling", something humans have been doing since we were living in caves.
I'm talking about fictional writing here, of course.

As for writing reviews with AI-that just seems like cheating to me, since it's not authentic and heartfelt. I'm truly disappointed to know people are resorting to this.

Debbie wrote: "I had the unfortunate experience of listening to an AI audible book recently. It was horrible. Not because of the story (that was fine), but because the narration just lacked anything "human"-no em..."


Well said, Debbie.. I am in total agreement with you.

Werner wrote: "Paul, even though I voted for the first option on the poll, I would have worded it a bit less strongly if I'd drafted it myself. I'm certainly not trying to be mean-spirited, nor to hurt anyone's f..."

Well said, Werner :)

thankfully I don't think that I've come across any AI books

Thanks, Nya!

I'm definitely team Werner with this. Thank you Werner for being my AI voice😀

Thank you, Patricia!

I don't particularly object to books themselves being produced by AI - so long as they're well-written, interesting, entertaining and so on. I do agree with Werner though that people using AI to bash out a novel say (or a dozen at once, a whole batch of the things) then passing it off as their own work and selling it on Amazon is inexcusable.

I read far more non-fiction than fiction and have come across a couple of books where it did cross my mind while still reading them that they'd been, if not wholly, then at least partly written by AI. With non-fiction it's not so easy to tell though since a lot of authors simply read through a whole stack of books on a subject, making notes as they go, then use the notes to churn out a new book - which is pretty much the way AIs like Copilot are trained!

As for using AI to write reviews though, well people have been writing fake book reviews for a very long time, and this is just the latest way of doing it.