AI= Artificial Intelligence

Should authors use AI in writing their books? Will AI replace writers? Is AI evil? Is it wrong to use AI to research characters…These are questions I’ve seen addressed for weeks now, but since I had not used AI, I didn’t have a horse in that race. (Can you tell I watched the Kentucky Derby Saturday?)

That all changed when I couldn’t come up with a good motive for my antagonist in my last book. The deadline was looming. I knew who “did it.” What I didn’t know was why other than generally why. I wanted something deeper.

So I brainstormed with a friend who had been fooling around with AI. She put the information into her program and came up with several backstories that could fit the character and give him a motive.

As I read the profiles the AI program spit out, one of them triggered an idea that in turn gave me a motive. The profiles also made me think about several aspects of the story and character that I hadn’t thought of. It also created a clearer picture in my mind of the antagonist.

AI can be a great tool for writers to help flesh out books, but I don’t believe it will ever replace writers. In Genesis 1:26, God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…”

AI will never be made in God’s image, and can never replace the creativity God put in writers to tell stories.

I’ve read several blogs where the writer asked AI to create a scene in the style of a particular writer. What AI returns is a pale imitation of that writer. And never any dialogue. And no “voice’ whatsoever.

Ai is technology, a tool, that a writer can use. Like atomic energy, it is neither good nor bad. There will be those who abuse AI and already are. Agents have told me they’re getting proposals that have obviously been written by AI. My question is, why would anyone want to use artificial intelligence to create a story? What satisfaction would that bring?

One of my greatest joys is having the scenes in my head to come out through my fingers on a computer. How could a writer have that joy when they didn’t create anything?

And last of all, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord…”

AI can’t do that.