I'm curious how people feel about AI and writing.

I'm curious how people feel about AI and writing. Feel free to add comments in reply.

#books #reading #writing #AI

@garethsouthwell I don't mind a spellchecker. (I do mind a grammar checker; following suggestions from grammar checkers tends to make any text into a boring business document *with* errors and inconsistencies). Any AI used in writing or editing = author goes on my reject pile.

@irina @garethsouthwell I don't really think of a spellchecker as "AI." After all, it's just checking the words you typed against a dictionary and flagging any words it doesn't find. I think grammar checkers are an abomination. I don't think that REAL writers need AI. (And yes, I count myself as a real writer, having published more than 80 books since 1991.)

@mlanger @irina I think there's a grey area with grammar checkers. If it says, "there is subject-verb disagreement here", then it's really just an extension of the spellchecker. But if it says, "you need to rephrase this from the passive to the active voice, and here's how you do that", then it starts to move into editing. A human editor might do that, to an extent, but I think many how are using it are relying heavily on its suggestions, which is robbing them of their own voice.

@garethsouthwell @irina Subject-verb disagreement is the kind of thing a writer or proofreader should be able to catch. Using a machine to do this job for you is just plain lazy.

But your example regarding passive versus active voice is a perfect example of what I mentioned elsewhere: when it tells you how to restructure your sentences to follow grammar "rules," it is stifling your creativity as a writer.

@mlanger @irina Well, I'm not suggesting that writers shouldn't learn about subject-verb disagreement, just that it's a basic thing that it might be useful for a machine to pick up on. I know the difference between "it's" and "its", but the number of the times I read back and find I've unconscioulsy used the wrong one is untold!

@garethsouthwell @irina That's why we have drafts and do our own proofreading.

@mlanger @irina Well, speaking for myself anyway, you can never have too many eyes on something. The brain goes word-blind and starts to overlook misakes you would normally spot. But each to their own.