Why I Use Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Before I begin, I want to assure everyone that I’m not going to be one of those folks who post something every day. Not that I’m against that, I just don’t have that kind of energy. And I often don’t have enough to say to warrant something frequently. So I promise I’ll only post when I have something to say that some of you may actually have an interest in reading.

I read something just recently that made me decide to weigh in on the conversation: use of Artificial Intelligence.

I see a lot of comments, posts, etc that refers to AI slop. I also have seen a lot of literary agents who say, absolutely no use of AI. Period. I’m not going to comment on that be cause it’s their prerogative to say that.

But let’s take a clear-eyed look at AI. In my opinion, use of AI really falls into a couple of categories: complete dependence on AI to produce and edit your work and use of AI for selective functions that, if you paid for it, would cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars.

To me, AI slop is the use of AI to write your work for you. You sit down at your computer, open Claude or ChatGPT and say, I want to write a story, blog post, column, etc about (X). The AI asks you some questions which hopefully you can answer and then boom! There is your piece. Did you write it? Nope, AI wrote it. Is that reasonable? I have no idea. I don’t nor would I ever do that. My work is my work, not Claude’s work.

Do I use AI? Oh absolutely yes. I have found AI to be something that is useful, fast and costs me almost nothing (I pay a small monthly subscription fee). I use AI to do a professional-level editorial pass on my work. I can’t afford to hire a professional human editor to do that. I use ChatGPT for that. I will submit a finished chapter or manuscript to ChatGPT. The AI does an editorial pass and gives me back sensible line-level, paragraph level or story level edits. The AI will also fact check and check for scientific, historical or other anomalies that need further research. It then delivers back recommendations based on what it finds. All of that takes just minutes or sometimes seconds. Frankly, I don’t have the money to pay a human being to do that for me.

Is that bad? To me, no. To others, maybe.

I also use ChatGPT for book cover art. That AI is incredibly fast and incredibly good at that. I absolutely don’t have the money to hire a professional cover designer. Besides, what I get from ChatGPT, besides how fundamentally excellent it is, is free. I have spent a couple of hours with ChatGPT designing a wrap-around cover for a paperback novel. We had multiple changes and adjustments until we got it exactly right. Could I pay someone to do that? No. Nor do I want to spend weeks of back and forth to get it exactly right.

I’m going to do something I usually don’t do. Why? Because I think what you do is your business, not mine. But having said that, why not log onto Open AI and start a ChatGPT chat. The first thing you’ll see is a prompt – what do you want to talk about today? Say something. Anything. Whatever comes to mind. I think you’ll be both surprised and fascinated by what transpires.

Here’s a conversation snippet from last night about the overuse of the word “specific”:

Holy Word Hunt, Batman! Too many results to show! (me)

😂 Result 49 of 916.

And Word has essentially thrown up its hands:

There are too many results to show here.

That is magnificent. We thought ~944 was bad; after today's executions, the defendant has been reduced to a mere 916 counts.

And the screenshot immediately gives us another beauty:

“She understood this now, in the specific way of things understood in extremity—”

Yeah. That one's going to die too.

But not tonight. Close Word, counselor. The prosecution rests. (ChatGPT)

Yes, AI has a sense of humor. Pretty cool, huh. Gotta love technology.