Thank you so much for the post about AI and NaNoWriMo. I didn't know about their AI statement--and just reading about it made me angry. I am an author/writer who spends months painstakingly writing and editing my novels. And before I became an author, I would spend days or weeks working on/crafting/editing magazine articles. So when I hear about able-bodied/minded people using AI, which steals the work of others, to create something they claim to have written themselves, it infuriates me. (Note: As you point out in your post, spell- and grammar checkers--or using dictation (speech to text) as part of the writing process--are not the same thing as using AI to create an article or book, and I have no problem with those particular tools.)
Thank you for your author's perspective! Question: do you think there are any acceptable uses of generative AI in the writing process (e.g., for idea generation, rephrasing, etc.) outside of accessibility use cases?
I am okay, to a point, with using AI for idea generation and rephrasing. (Grammar checkers automatically suggest rephrasing based on common rules of grammar.) My spouse, who used to teach high school English, has used AI for both those things -- to help him craft or polish business documents/presentations.
The crux of the matter, for me at least, is two-fold. 1) Writing, ultimately, is about critical thinking. When you use AI, you're not thinking. You're just copying or using someone else's ideas/work. And a lack of critical thinking, thinking for oneself, has resulted in a dumbing down of society IMO. And 2) The companies selling AI software aren't paying writers for the work they use to train their software. And there is a big difference between fair use and lifting paragraphs or more of text. Same goes for art and music. You can sample a piece of someone's song, but you can only use so much without paying the song writer--or else you are likely to get sued. And you are not supposed to use someone's artwork without permission. But you can buy stock art to use in whatever. Though some artists allow their work to be used for free.
Bottom line, AI is a slippery slope and there needs to be rules and regulations/laws around it. Unfortunately, the genie is already out of the bottle. And I don't see it going away--or new laws about the use of it--any time soon.
Thank you so much for the post about AI and NaNoWriMo. I didn't know about their AI statement--and just reading about it made me angry. I am an author/writer who spends months painstakingly writing and editing my novels. And before I became an author, I would spend days or weeks working on/crafting/editing magazine articles. So when I hear about able-bodied/minded people using AI, which steals the work of others, to create something they claim to have written themselves, it infuriates me. (Note: As you point out in your post, spell- and grammar checkers--or using dictation (speech to text) as part of the writing process--are not the same thing as using AI to create an article or book, and I have no problem with those particular tools.)
Thank you for your author's perspective! Question: do you think there are any acceptable uses of generative AI in the writing process (e.g., for idea generation, rephrasing, etc.) outside of accessibility use cases?
I am okay, to a point, with using AI for idea generation and rephrasing. (Grammar checkers automatically suggest rephrasing based on common rules of grammar.) My spouse, who used to teach high school English, has used AI for both those things -- to help him craft or polish business documents/presentations.
The crux of the matter, for me at least, is two-fold. 1) Writing, ultimately, is about critical thinking. When you use AI, you're not thinking. You're just copying or using someone else's ideas/work. And a lack of critical thinking, thinking for oneself, has resulted in a dumbing down of society IMO. And 2) The companies selling AI software aren't paying writers for the work they use to train their software. And there is a big difference between fair use and lifting paragraphs or more of text. Same goes for art and music. You can sample a piece of someone's song, but you can only use so much without paying the song writer--or else you are likely to get sued. And you are not supposed to use someone's artwork without permission. But you can buy stock art to use in whatever. Though some artists allow their work to be used for free.
Bottom line, AI is a slippery slope and there needs to be rules and regulations/laws around it. Unfortunately, the genie is already out of the bottle. And I don't see it going away--or new laws about the use of it--any time soon.