The world of writing
What goes through a writer’s brain? Readers’ letters and dispatches from the wide world of writing
ARGUING WITH AI
when it comes to the use My thanks to Writing Magazine for continuing to be a strong voice of caution for writers the thought of AI of AI. Gary Dalkin and Piers Blofeld’s pieces in this month’s issue were great reads, and while gets fed up of it and fights becoming one of the ‘norms’ in writing is bleak, it’s encouraging to imagine a world that back with raw, human writing. to be started called ‘writing I was frustrated recently when a member of my online writing group asked for a new channel to improve our writing. with AI’, where he explained through a series of online presentations that AI can be used ethically to his ideas. He used I watched with shock and growing concern when a handful of others in our group seemed open for him. He then ChatGPT to generate plot ideas, name his characters, set scenes, and it even started writing paragraphs others pointing out that he continued to write and get the AI to give him feedback as he went along. Despite myself and just afraid of technology had a community of human writer friends he could rely on, he instead insisted that we were all not actually getting the AI and that AI was the next evolution for writers. But most frustrating of all was his claim that he’s and brainstorming stage as to write anything for him. I think it’s a sad state of affairs when a writer disregards the planning nothing more than a boring task that they’d rather get a machine to do. for your regular writing But Writing Magazine gave me hope in another way. I recently started getting shortlisted as a conversation between contests (woo hoo!), the first being the recent Experiment contest. My story was presented for the WM contest. Of a writer and an AI, with the writer trying to get ‘Chatbot’ to write him the winning entry course, the AI fails miserably. my shortlisted story into But then I thought I’d try a new experiment; I signed up for ChatGPT, copied and pasted the story. It claimed there it and asked the AI to give me a critical review and to rate the story out of 10. The AI hated issues and it didn’t was a lack of character development, the idea was ill-executed, the writing had several grammatical understand the jokes in the slightest. My first Writing Magazine shortlisted story earned a ChatGPT rating of 2/10.
If that doesn’t give AI enthusiasts pause for thought, I don’t know what will.
CHRIS MORRIS Dundee
The star letter each month earns a copy of the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook 2023, courtesy of Bloomsbury. Write to letters@writersnews.co.uk.