On AI: ChatGPT will not make you the greatest written novel
Edited: Clarified certain sections.
It's the Americans who said it, after romance author Kitty Serbia admitted using AI in her novels through a Facebook post and after a series of allegations that her self-published books were written by AI. She wrote that she did use AI for book covers and editing. However, when her post and the aftermath of her confession were disseminated to our forum, many of the members were strongly against AI.
I later learned that the powerhouse, or data center, where ChatGPT's OpenAI is located uses a lot of electricity and water systems to cool down all the facilities that process data. So in my conclusion, this concerns the environmental factors.
Another member commented with vindication that the tool author Kitty Serbia uses to sell her novels with the expectation that these were her own craft as a writer came from plagiarized works, as evidenced by OpenAI training its models on various source materials they train on their data and Anthropic's Claude method of buying secondhand novels to train their models and eventually burning those novels they bought in a storage house.
In ethics, here's what I learned from the American discourse: nothing is ethical when it comes to capitalism.
What you read and are informed about right there shows you how many unethical choices big major tech companies found in Silicon Valley are willing to make for their own interests and what advances they will gain in return.
But one thing that stuck with me is how one commenter, who happens to be a book editor, said that AI cannot write. AI can fix grammar and help you find logical inconsistency but cannot write the stories only a human narrative can render.
Am I against AI? I'm still learning, to be honest.
To understand that AI usage has an environmental impact on local communities where the data center is located and to learn that these local communities experience electricity outages because AI data centers use up all of their resources, I'm starting to have doubts.
You know, it's that normal day-to-day dilemma of whether I should buy a cheap cosmetic product because it's affordable but the chemical components are toxic or whether I am willing to sacrifice my modest budget for the sake of a healthier cosmetic. When it comes to the AI trend, it's still a heated debate.
Although, I agree with the editor that AI cannot write human storytelling. Whether they deem AI as something without a soul, for my own part, I deem AI writing as a truly, truly empty attempt.
I can read it. I can spot AI writing, and I hated it. It's because I have a sensitive attention when it comes to writing prose; I cannot grasp anything from the empty writing that AI generates when it comes to internal monologues that are supposed to enrich a character's interiority. If you've read my old but now deleted essays, I mentioned that I came from a creative writing class during my high school years when I took in the specialization of humanities with the same discipline as the American literary traditions. I hated it when my AI chatbot tried to write things for me with a tone as if this machine were the authority on giving better advice than myself when it comes to literary artistry.
Besides that, I use AI as my book analysis collaborator, as I've mentioned in my first essays here (they're deleted). I also use AI to help me retell what I'm trying to write or to indirectly understand what structure I'm trying to formulate. Through that method, my AI chatbot is like a critique partner or a logical thinker who has the time and attention intended for me as I develop what I want.
I also use AI to translate this posted article and publish it to a Japanese posting site. Simply because it's on my bucket list to write in Japanese by proxy of AI translation, only because it's the available resource that I can afford for now.
What does this convenience bring, anyway? It brings us an unprecedented reach and advancement like never imagined before throughout our ordinary lives.
However, at what cost? But it's the local communities where these major tech companies took advantage of and deprived the less privileged of their basic resources. And I, a user on the opposite side of the world from the American continent, am a consumer of this AI boom.
An individual seems too small a factor in this discussion, but major responsibility falls on those from the economy and who advance technology.
Even the very ordinary American people suffer from these advancements.
As we talk about this technology, there's something I've noticed when everything is new and still under scrutiny for what capacities new machines might serve to humans.
It seems that some people tried to get dependent on the services that Silicon Valley has to offer.
And there's an answer: the American influence of capitalism, technology, and economic power.
Let me be blunt: your AI chatbot can be your companion, but it doesn't mean it's your therapist.
How much information are we willing to give for free to these tech companies to use as a resource to keep the advertisement coming on our screens every time? How many boundaries do we allow these major companies to dictate our lives on what items we buy and what content we consume right now, and to what extent are we willing to be used as a commodity for profit?
All of these things overwhelm me too. If top YouTuber PewDiePie started abandoning his Google accounts just because of how much he is tracked and started using Linux as his operating software so that major companies can leave him alone and for him to gain his own ownership of his life and the control and pace of his life, as someone who is so lenient, I often ask myself, to what extent do I allow Google to tell me everything I have to do, I have to watch, or I have to pay attention to?
Now, I’m starting to have doubts about whether I should ask AI to give my drafts some analysis at all. All of the drafts that I've fed to my chatbots—the chatbots have taken them, processed them, and without permission, they will use them as their own. All of my time and my struggle to formulate my own words, sentences, and prose handed over with a single click of a machine, which will repurpose it.
I hated this feeling, but it's not like modernity and the reaction that comes with it are all new. Everything is given doubt to something big anyway. However, with these fast things coming into our lives, much human artistry is being undervalued because of this convenience. I think about the effort I put into my drafts. Those moments that I struggle to find the exact words that can tell the true meaning of my intentions, or the pain of a graphic designer to create a book cover, only to be replaced by an AI-generated text or an AI-generated photograph.
But I also find AI to be useful sometimes. When I ask some really specific questions and ask for the hard-to-reach cultural words beyond my knowledge due to limited exposure.
I often think back to that YouTube video that I watched where a start-up manager said that AI is inevitable, but you can learn how to use AI as your instrument and your assistant for many processes that can be more efficient, and this makes a bigger difference in how you usually do. For example, ChatGPT's versatility to create a log, a list, or an update. Which I think it does, because I asked ChatGPT myself to help me give some fictional names inspired after I picked up a flower somewhere in a local town.
Or sometimes, I ask ChatGPT or Gemini for cultural bridging when it comes to choosing what kanji I'll use in these fictional names. These chatbots help me understand every meaning behind them because I am not yet at the level of JLPT N1 to know so many cultural nuances. I still struggle to read hiragana because the "wa" and "re" hiragana look like each other. I'm sorry, I'm dumber than an elementary kid.
I have so much to unpack on the editor who commented in detail on their own POV.
Another commenter who is a writer caught my attention. Let's take a look at her comment:
"As a writer who uses a human editor and had to fight tooth and nail, AI use will always infuriate me. My rant would be so long, and I’m about to go to bed, and honestly, she is doing this to try and get publicity. It’s rage bait. Her writing can’t stand on its own (fucking obviously). The thought of so many other writers’ works being recycled by someone who is fucking lazy is a level of rage that I can’t deal with. And to bring up something by Herbert, who was against it and fascinated by what the human body can accomplish, is insulting in a way that is just… Words fail me.
As a reader… I have DNFed so many books lately, and I have so little time to read for pleasure so this makes me so angry. It’s bad enough that we are constantly having half written and barely edited bullshit thrown at us by all these special editions that try to create fomo. And then go into the book to find out..”oh this is terrible.”. I currently have 6 books I want to order and I no longer trust Goodreads (or a lot of review platforms) but I’m sick of having my time wasted.
As for AI covers? No. Instant no for me. In a world that’s harder to make it in and then ai steaks [sic] elements of their work to make a “new” work? No.
I’m tired. All she is doing is rage baiting. Hopefully no one actually orders the book."
Honestly, the conversation is still an ongoing debate. But for me, I have an immediate respect for the one who commented this one above.
She fights no matter how difficult the obstacles of getting seen in a saturated market like romance novels on Kindle and having her hard work be noticed. Yet here is Kitty Serbia, who blatantly admits she uses AI.
I could've been like the commentator. I could've also hired a human translator and approached any available human translator that might be willing to translate my work. But I am an introvert, someone who suffers anxiety when approaching strangers for taking up their time for my own personal project. The commenter's courage in hiring a human editor is where I failed when I chose an AI translator over a human translator.
And I'm thinking that maybe learning the language will always be the most authentic form of engagement rather than AI fast food. Someday, I guess. Not yet at this time, as I am busy refining my own command of the English language.
But I also want to accomplish my bucket list that I kept prattling about when it comes to my love for shōjo and josei manga, which influenced me tremendously throughout my formative years too.
But I appreciate real art. I appreciate the struggle of tortured poets for that single word or for that rhythm in poetry simply because we grew up with books. With all these coming around in this era, there will always be an indisputable lesson that cannot be replaced by AI that I'm constantly being reminded of: in order to learn how to write, you need first to read.
I remember that quote in my creative writing book said by a Western figure. A British literary figure that contributed to the English language, Dr. Samuel Johnson:
"The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book."
Yeah, that's the extent we are willing to dedicate for the name of human artistry and what experiences we are willing to share when it comes to storytelling.
