What are the dangers of using AI in your writing?

The role that technology plays in the arts has always driven conversation on how we engage with and complete that art. For every person decrying a new tool as a shortcut, there are others able to build their career on them. However, there are few technological developments that have been quite as inflammatory or as revolutionary as AI tools, such as ChatGPT. Whatever form of writer you are, there’s no denying that AI tools offer real advantages. Being able to generate hundreds and thousands of words, answer questions, provide research, and even ideas can drastically cut down on how much work you have to do. The question is, what is the price you have to pay for it?

The risk of plagiarism

One of the most important things to understand about current AI models is that they do not truly create. They reconfigure, remix, and regurgitate language, information, and opinions from wide datasets. However, the written content it produces isn’t always remixed enough. There is a chance that it could come out with sentences, thoughts, or perhaps entire paragraphs directly lifted from another source. If you publish that under your name, then you are plagiarizing, intentionally or otherwise.

Inaccurate information

The intelligence of artificial intelligence is somewhat up for debate. Many do use it as a very effective search engine, answering queries perhaps more concisely and directly than Google can these days, as marketing-driven as it is. That said, the information AI provides isn’t always accurate. AI isn’t able to verify its claims or cross-check different sources. In most cases, it generates content based on training data, and this may include sourcing news articles or informational pieces across the internet, but it’s always important to double-check it. As such, even if you’re just using AI to research your own writing, it can still cause problems.

Lacking the personal touch

One of the key abilities of any great writer is their ability to connect with their readers on a personal level. To be able to find the nuggets of emotional truth that allow you to share perspectives and to impact another’s feelings is an irreplaceable talent. AI can sometimes replicate emotional writing to this end, but it’s never going to be as effective as applying human insight, experience, and emotions. Readers are drawn to authenticity, and if the writing feels like it doesn’t have any semblance of a human touch, they’re more likely to disengage.

The AI voice

The more that it is used, the more that AI clearly has an identifiable voice of its own. This is largely based on pulling from the same dataset, which amalgamates popular writings of different styles. There are tools that allow you to humanize AI writing to some degree, but as a writer, your own voice is an important part of what makes you uniquely talented. If you’re putting your own voice into your writing, then you are creating writing that anyone else can reproduce. Even if you’re using AI-generated content, but writing it in your own words, you have to be active in emphasizing your own voice to make it distinct enough to stand out.

The risk of losing your ability

One of the most important pieces of writing advice, popularized by Stephen King in his book On Writing is that you have to write every day. Even if it’s just a tiny bit, make sure that you get some words down on a piece of paper (or a digital document.) The reason this is so vital is that your writing chops are like a muscle. If you don’t use them, they are going to atrophy. If you let AI do your thinking and your writing for you, it’s going to become harder and harder to do it yourself. Your critical thinking, creativity, and language skills can diminish as a result. At some point, you may have to consider whether you can truly be called a writer.

The lack of originality

We have already looked at the plagiarism issue that is a major potential problem in AI but, even beyond questions of copyright and ethics, if you rely on AI-generated writing, then you are going to have a significant problem with how original your writing feels. As mentioned, AI is trained on datasets, and certain characteristics tend to shine more commonly throughout different AI-generated pieces. You’re synthesizing information that already exists, even if it is reconfigured. Originality is a huge part of what makes creative writers creative. Even if your own tastes and habits are formed from a lifetime of reading different sources and engaging in different art, those are your tastes, not the same pile of data that every other AI user is also tapping into. You can take steps to expand your tastes as a writer. You can’t do that with AI.

Difficulty with nuance

AI doesn’t work like a real brain. Just as it doesn’t think to check the veracity of the information it provides, it doesn’t sit down and ponder the nuance of the content that it generates. Addressing complex topics, especially if they involve sensitivity, humour, or deep analysis, is simply beyond its ability. This is another part of what can have it feeling “inhuman.”

Losing your love of writing

People who look at AI solely as a tool to improve productivity are those who do not value the creative process or experience. Being a writer isn’t just about what you produce. It’s about the effort that goes into it. Hitting on a spark of inspiration. Thinking about the language you choose to express it. Weaving compelling narratives out of disparate ideas. AI takes all of this out of the journey to create written content and, without that, it’s very easy to lose the love of writing that got you into it in the first place.

To suggest that AI is entirely useless in the writing process simply isn’t true. However, to suggest that it’s an unalloyed good is just as false. It’s up to you to decide if and how much you rely on AI with your writing. Whatever the case, you have to be aware of the costs.