I would say that there’s no way to divide a room like bringing up AI, but politics, so you know…

I’m bringing up AI. (Not politics.)

Though you, my friends, are readers and writers, so you might tend more one way than the other. Perhaps.

Do I hate AI? Do I love it? Do I think we need to accept it and learn it and use it and move on? Or do I think we need to fight it?

There are reasons for me to—if not hate it, then—dislike AI, for sure. Lately, my most visceral reaction has actually been to the environmental tax it pays, the egregious waste of resources. It just feels like one of those things we haven’t thought enough about, that our grandkids are one-hundred percent going to have to deal with. And all for what? In most ways I notice its being used, it is random, entertaining, or unnecessary. So.

But for 2025 up until now, my reaction was largely frustration that sometimes spilled over into anger. I have gotten around that by ignoring AI on my phone and laptop as much as I can. I mean, I zoom past the AI interference when I notice it, because quite frankly, as someone who does a bumload of research on a regular basis and has for many years, AI is flat-out wrong more than it’s right. In two ways. Sometimes it’s wrong because it doesn’t understand the human mind and the way we ask a question or pursue an answer. So the answer is irrelevant and often condescending. Sometimes it’s wrong because it has pulled information from the wrong sources. You can often track the sources. They are not appropriate places for anyone (or anything, it turns out) to rely on for veracity and neutrality. And since we are shaping the internet and browsers further by clicking on the AI nonsense, we are rather quickly and surely pushing reliable sources down to the bottom, burying them under utter nonsense. Good job, everyone. Maybe we’ll have to go back to libraries and reference books once we’ve trashed the internet. (Therefore the frustration and anger.)

But let’s say we figure AI out. It becomes a useful tool that basically gets things right and understands what we are looking for and where to find it. And it does it fast. And it does it efficiently.

The big debate for us artists, then (besides whether it will take over the world or enslave humanity), is whether it will take the creatives’ jobs. Whether AI-generated books and art will shove the creatives aside. And whether we creatives should embrace it now. Work with it. Use it. And therefore come out on top of the wave with it instead of being plowed and possibly murdered (our careers, our fun, I mean) by it.

As of now, I don’t see a lot of indications that AI is capable of producing great art or writing truly well and like a human. But does that mean much? I read actual human-made stuff all the time that isn’t great, but it still sells. Do most people care if it’s any good? Can most people even appreciate great writing when set next to poor writing? And do they care? If one is cheaper than the other? If one relies more frequently on titillation and dopamine rushes while the other dares to make us work for it, think?

Not to mention (okay, I’m mentioning it now), the blatant theft of authors’ and artists’ work that is happening millions of times a day all over the internet. AI barely even paraphrases sometimes. It just grabs words and images from the most oft-used places and regurgitates them (or quotes them!) as its own “amalgamated” response. It is concerning. We don’t let people do that (in theory). It’s called copyright law. Why on earth are we letting a supercomputer (capable of speed and breadth one can hardly imagine) do that?

And where do writers draw the line? This is the most directly applicable of the questions and concerns in my life at this time. Not only have two of my writing groups written AI guidelines after members stepped over a line the group didn’t even know was there yet, but I do make decisions about this every day. I’ve been using AI for editing for at least a few years (though there appear to be levels of AI, and I don’t think anyone is really making sense of that or categorizing that for us yet). But even editing is a slippery slope. Do I let editing software rewrite whole sentences for me? Whole paragraphs? Analyze a whole story? Do I accept every grammatical correction, even? I haven’t yet played much with idea generation because, honestly; I don’t need it. So it’s easy for me to say I don’t want it. What about authors letting AI write their entire story or novel and then editing it themselves into something that is “theirs”? What is intrinsically wrong with this? I can’t say I’ve encountered too many people enthusiastic about it, as much as enthusiastic because they’re resigned. But I react like many of my writer friends with a vomitousness. The very idea of letting AI write for me disgusts me. Even when I’ve gone to name generators over the years, I mess with the results, using them more as a tool to get my own juices going. Creatives are DIY people, and I get nauseous just thinking of a robot even collabing with me.

But I’m not everyone.

I used an algorithmic program that we might today call AI to line-edit this blog post (but it’s local, so I don’t think it wastes water and power in the same way?).

I guess I don’t mind Grammarly or ProWritingAid (to some extent). I find them useful and not scary in the way I know how to apply them. Even Fictionary. They all claim they don’t use user content to train their AI. So it’s not learning from you as much as being trained ahead of time, like how we traditionally think of robots, of algorithms. See what I mean? Levels of AI.

And I’m positive I’m using AI in ways that I don’t even know I am using AI. Insidious little bastards.
Which means some of it might even be enhancing my life. Might make for positive changes in society. I don’t want to be all alarmist in the face of exciting advancements.

There is no conclusion. There is a lot to think about and AI is leaping onto our screens faster than we can consider what to do about it. There are people working tirelessly to protect copyright, but probably not enough of them. And there’s just no way to know the future. Probably our impressions here are based more on our own disposition. Are we the kind of person who resists change or embraces it? I am pretty old fashioned. I love analog stuff. And I have some hope that AI won’t be quite as ubiquitous as we fear when the shine wears off. Heck, maybe the techpocalypse will come before the AI takeover.

Guess we’ll all see. Not like we don’t already have enough to worry about.