AI and the Writer's Pain

I was chatting about the fact that I am meant to post today (according to my internal schedule), and that I do not have any idea for a story. My chatting counterpart suggested to use AI to get some ideas.

And I was like? Isn’t that cheating?

My counterpart advised that seeing how I am the one actually writing the story it is not.

But still, to me, it feels too easy. I am used to the pain of it all, the struggle, the self-doubt. Using AI makes it just too easy, too much like work and not like a calling.

Unlike a craft where you build the entire creation from the ground up, using the slippery dust, shaping it with water to build worlds of ideas and to populate them with your characters.

Only once was I accused that one of my stories was written by AI. I took it as a compliment seeing how AI is so much more capable than me.

It reminded me of when I was little and, for some strange reason, I was really good at creating drawings for our Biology class, my colleagues were sure my mom made them. I was flattered by their mistrust in my work.

Same with AI. If somebody suspects me of using AI, then maybe they think my work is too good to be created by a human?

I think Chat GPT is an amazing tool, mind boggling and wondrous, but for me, my writing is my own, so personal and so intimate, so much a part of me, that even if it is flawed and not up to the highest standards it is mine, created by me from start to finish. Every part of it belongs to me, every mistake, every great bit.

An idea that came to me while thinking about this topic was the fact that, using AI takes away part of the pain, of the toil, of the painstaking work of creating a written piece and for me this hardship is instrumental in its making.

That process of choosing, of thinking, of pondering, of sweating and self-doubt, of creating I think, contributes to the uniqueness of the voice of the author and to the quality of the work.

Isn’t writing meant to be difficult?

I do like using Chat GPT though to create images for my stories and posts. In the past, before it, I used to dig around the internet for images that would be suitable as headers for my posts, now though, it is so nice to work with the Chat to create an image that is representative for my stories.

The image for today’s post was created by AI after I gave it the story and some suggestions.

I am sure soon, if not already, the market will be filled with works created by AI, and as it learns so quickly, I am not sure we will be able to say which are written by humans and which by AI. Scary thought, but it is the reality we live in.

Yeah, so today, not a post written with AI, but about AI.

What do you think about AI? Do you use it to support your work in any way?