The rise in utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) tools on writing have been visibly skyrocketing, and I get to witness it all as someone who has an undying passion for creative writing, publishing media and literature, and I have thoughts about it. I understand that it can be tempting to “live on easy mode” and just call an AI work as your own, but I am trying not to for the sake of integrity and passion. I have this dream of making a living being a writer, either but publishing a book or working on lifestyle magazines either as a writer or part of production; hence why I am currently taking on a communication program and further hones my skills and passion for the craft such as continuously writing poems, essays, blog posts, and so on. And being a virtual assistant, I sort of work with writing already, since I do social media and blog content as well.
For me, writing is an outlet to express myself. I am creative, emotional, and opinionated. However, I’m not very expressive so I find solace in putting what’s on my mind to writing. It helps me organize my thoughts and think about things. It makes me happy and it is something no one could take away from me. I enjoy being creative and be so motivated with tasks that I can thrive.
But I will not be a judgmental hypocrite and say I am completely against AI tools and that people who uses it are sinners and villains of the writing realm. In fact, I also use it every now and then in some cases, but I set proper boundaries and make sure everything I put out entirely to the world is not 100% made by AI. For work, I am very encouraged to use it because they believe it can make them save time and boost my efficiency. I use it to write and get content ideas, but I make sure to still make edits and still work on it before I put them out in the world.
For school, as much as I don’t want to ChatGPT my way to good grades, I admit to may have used it for small texts especially on online mini-activities that I don’t understand or doesn’t require much effort, but I always follow my personal “edit it first” rule because there are times that either AI doesn’t give me much relevant or correct information, the tone and overall thought is not what I have in my mind, or a specific idea pops up in my mind that I have to add. I still think throughout the process, I just cannot help it. Also, most of the time our onsite classes, we do activities and exams where are discouraged to using our devices. In terms of big writing tasks, I avoid using AI, at all, period. I want to keep that discipline to myself. I’d rather burn my fingers and brain making a 3+ page essay than letting AI do it for me. Essays and written works are literally my best friends, especially if it’s about topics that I like and learned a lot about. In fact, I get good grades without it already, so I don’t feel the huge need for it.
As someone who has a wild reputation as a writer. these are embarrassing to admit, and really beats the purpose on writing this post in the first place. One thing is for sure, though; I am not comfortable of relying to AI to write on behalf of me in my personal writing such as in this blog as if this is my sacred space. For sure I can ask ChatGPT for 10-20 ideas of what I can talk and I already have a couldron on what I will write next, but so far it’s just it. I don’t even bother about polishing my grammar and tone either since I believe that’s the “personal” touch in it. Besides, I don’t need any help with those, especially if I write aboout things I’m passionate about, I have all the freedom to write what I want. Same with quick social media captions, personal essays, poems, and think pieces. I just couldn’t fathom the idea of me coming off as an AI mouthpiece. I just don’t do that. Again, I’m smart enough that I don’t feel such huge need for it
As a writer by heart, I believe this can be a nuanced topic for everyone and whoever you’ll ask will have a different opinion. For me, utilizing AI tools is inevitable. They are literally everywhere, and when there’s a good axe, chop wood for the fireplace. I am not promoting publishing AI-generated work, at all, but I recognize how these tools can be helpful in getting our point across, and can make writing more accessible to people of all walks of life. There’s nothing wrong on asking ChatGPT for topics or outlines, or using grammarly to improve your grammar. The bottomline is it can help you get things done, but you still have to put in most of the work nonetheless. But it’s still a question of preference. In fact, you can be traditional and completely avoid AI if you want to, but I’m just saying that you can still write in a traditional manner if you prefer, even with a very little AI influence.
To note, the only AI tool I consciously use (personally, rarely) is ChatGPT. I used to use grammarly but I’m not really a fan. Now I just don’t use or pay for other fancy-schmancy advanced writing tools or pro features. I would not like to defend ChatGPT because I know it’s also really shady and contributed to many problems with AI, but ChatGPT can come in handy for writers, especially if you’re stuck or suffering from writers’ block. Besides, it’s not necessarily a writing tool. It’s a just language model that just gathers existing information and rewrites/presents it however it is supposed to. Since it is a language model, it can write basic things, but not all the information provided can be accurate or relevant so that’s where you come in to edit, revise and add your personal touch. Use it however you feel best for you, but I only have it for topics and outlines. We should establish a boundary on how we use these tools and not let it affect our writing process.
It just saddens me that these AI tools could get in the hands of bad actors that will just publish low-quality AI nothingburger often for some bucks, especially with the rise of “get rich quick” schemes using AI. It doesn’t just over-saturates the world with these soul-less things, but it also decreases the respect, quality, and credibility to the intricate craft of writing, art, media, and literature. I might be overreacting but this is truly what I feel.
On the other hand, I have a strong opposition to AI art. It’s literally stealing other artists’ styles and individuality to teach a machine how to do it, taking away the soul out of it and the uniqueness out of the original artists. It’s deliberate scouring creative content on the internet and letting it do artworks for you for cheap. It’s not just presenting existing information, but rather replicating a unique thing. In fact, artists (and us writers) also do their craft for a living so knowing that their clientele/customers can just replace them with something from and AI tool somewhere is very disheartening. It’s another nuanced topic that I will not delve further into and better be heard from the artists themselves, but I am just pointing out that it can be a same case.
This may be the challenge of the modern times; to be able to utilize AI and make it part of our process in a more ethical way, a way that doesn’t strips away the soul and the individuality of every writer or artist. These tools are not going anywhere, so we might as well dip our hands on it when we have to. While it is good that with these tools, some people think and feel they can write and improve their writing, us creatives should be so self-secure of our skills, capabilities, and individualities whenever we use these tools. The goal is to make AI work with our favor, not make AI consume us entirely.
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