212: The Tough Love Episode: AI

 

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The Tough Love Episode: AI

 

Hello, welcome back to Your Big Creative Life podcast. Buckle up for this episode because I'm going to yell at you about AI. I have done a number of Tough Love episodes that are really fun and I've heard from y'all that you seem to really enjoy them. We have Tough Love episodes about writing, editing. querying social media and now AI, because this is a topic I'm fired up about. If you're new to the podcast or new to me, you might not have seen me talk about this, but I'm very, very anti-AI in the writing process, generative AI at least. And anytime I talk about this on social media, I get a massive amount of DMs from people or comments on the video or post. with people disagreeing with me, telling me why I'm wrong. And I see the same arguments over and over and over. And I want to talk about those in this episode. And look, if you are in love with ChatGPT and you get ChatGPT to write your book for you and you love it and see no issues, Maybe I won't be able to change your mind. Okay, fine. I'm thinking of this episode more for people who are on the fence about it, who are like, well, it seems okay because I want to use ChatGPT for this thing, or I've used it in the past and I feel weird about it, but I'm not sure.

Like, that's who I want to talk to in this episode, okay? To give you some tough love about using it. And if you are Similar to me in your viewpoints, maybe it'll just feel good for me to like yell about AI. I don't know. And before we get into the tough love portion of this, I want to make something clear, just in case you are new to how I talk about this or my thoughts on AI. When I say AI, I'm talking about generative AI specifically. I'm not talking about accessibility tools. Speechify is an example of this, something that uses AI. I use dictation as a writing tool, obviously that uses some form of AI, I guess. We're not talking about that. We're not talking about Grammarly or ProWritingAid. I've used Grammarly before just to test out the capabilities. It's okay. It's not great. It misses things. It has suggestions that are incorrect. It's kind of like the editing feature in Microsoft Word, where it will want you to like place commas in places where they don't need commas, or it will suggest a form of a verb that's just incorrect. Like it catches some things, but it's not great. So anyways, I'm not talking about those things. I draw a line at everything I just mentioned being okay, and then everything I'm going to talk about in this episode in terms of generative AI being not okay. It's a very, very clear line. If you are using ChatGPT or any AI tool to do some part of the creative process for you, as in writing, brainstorming, developing your characters, your world, Giving you feedback and suggestions on how to make your writing better, the story better.

All of that is a firm no for me, because you are no longer asking a computer to put a comma in place in a place for you or catch misspellings. You are now having a tool. okay, we're going to get into all the reasons why I'm against it. Actually, no, we're not. I shouldn't say that. We're not going to get into all the reasons. But I just, you're outsourcing part of the creative process. It's wrong. And we're going to talk about all the arguments in this episode. What I didn't want to do in this episode is just rehash everything I've already discussed. I did a podcast episode probably six months ago that's like, what you need to know about AI in the writing process. And those go into my reasons. for why you shouldn't use it. So if you want to check that out, you can listen to that episode. I also have a pinned video on my social media at Katie Wolf Writes on TikTok and Instagram that talks about why I'm against it. And there are a lot of reasons, not just because personally I don't want you to use it, but it's because you're limiting your options if you want to submit to a small press or a query. You can't copyright your work. You are outsourcing it and creativity and not like giving yourself the opportunity to learn, et cetera. We could go on and on, but I'm not going to rehash all that. So again, in this episode, what I want to do is give you some tough love.

And if you have heard these arguments in the past or you have used these arguments in the past, we're going to go through and I'm going to yell at you about them. So if you're feeling fragile for some reason about AI, I guess just a note of caution, but otherwise, let's get into it. All right, first argument I've heard over and, oh, one more disclaimer actually before we get into it. I will probably curse more in this episode than I normally do because I feel so strongly about this. So just a note, if you have kids around and you want them to hear cursing. All right, this isn't, this argument #1, tough love beginning. This is an argument I have heard over and over and over to the point where I'm like, oh my God, are y'all bots? Has ChatGPT given you this line? Everyone was afraid of a calculator or a typewriter when it was first invented. Everyone was afraid of Google. This is the same thing. Should we not use typewriter computers? Should we not use word processors? Oh my God. Okay. If you don't see the difference between a tool like ChatGPT, a generative AI tool that comes up with creative words and storytelling and all those things, and a calculator or a typewriter or Google, we've got a serious issue here. You're being willfully ignorant and willfully obtuse.

Please sit down on a typewriter and prompt the typewriter to finish a scene for you or write dialogue or give you suggestions for improving the magic system in your world, or even like researching something. Go ahead, sit down at your typewriter. Ask your typewriter to do that stuff for you. I'll wait. that's right. It ******* can't. Neither can a calculator. Now the Google argument, again, I guess if research is the thing you're talking about, sure, you can research something on Google, but Google is not doing the creative work for you. It is not constructing a sentence. It is not giving you suggestions on your actual writing itself. You can put how to improve as a writer on Google and it will give you resources, but it's not actually making changes to your writing. It's not giving you feedback on your writing. It's not improving anything in your story. That argument is so ******* dumb. Miss me with that. I'm sorry. I see that so many times. And I'm like, y'all know better than this. You know that's not a good argument. I'm sorry. All right, next up. What's the difference between a person giving you feedback and AI? This is an argument I hear all the time from people who are like, well, I just use ChatGPT to give me feedback and like improve my story once I've written it.

So therefore it's okay. Oh, what's, you hire, you're an editor. People hire you. Isn't that the same thing? If you don't understand the difference between a person and a machine learning tool, like a piece of technology, Setting aside the fact that AI was trained off of stolen work, this is just ********. And recently, I'm recording this episode at the beginning of December, and at the end of November, there was a lawsuit against OpenAI, one of many, and related to authors. And they can proceed in, the judge ruled that they can proceed in this discovery related to this case, because what they're trying to show is that OpenAI knew They were, they had these large data sets of books that they had gotten illegally, that they were scraping to train ChatGPT so that it could then help, I'm putting that in quotes, writers. Because you have to train a tool on how to do these things, right? You have to give it millions of pages of examples. And it's moving forward, which is great because spoiler, they ******* knew. They talked, I read an article about it from, where was it from, the Hollywood Reporter maybe, and they talked about Slack messages from OpenAI employees indicating that they knew.

And another key piece in this case is that if they can prove that OpenAI destroyed evidence of these data sets of all these millions of pages of books, that is heavily granting, like it's heavily skewing the case to show that, oh, they deleted it because they knew it was illegal, they knew it was wrong. So you are using a tool that was trained off of stolen work. Also, I have talked on social media about how ChatGPT AI writing is terrible and obvious. And it's terrible not in the way that you would think. It's not terrible in the sense that like, oh, it's a writer who's just learning wrote it. No, it's terrible in that everything might be technically correct. The words might be in the correct order. The punctuation might be perfect, but everything sounds the same. Everything sounds flat. It repeats things. It's inconsistent with details that just don't make sense. It's very obviously AI generated. And if that is the stuff that ChatGPT can spit out, why would you trust it to give you feedback on your work? You wouldn't go to some writer that you think is terrible and doesn't know how to tell a good story. You wouldn't hire that person to be your editor and be like, well, give me feedback on my book. No, why the **** are you doing the same thing with ChatGPT? Plus, now you are inserting your work into a tool that will then use that work to spit out and help other writers. It's taking your work and using it, spitting it back out for other people. Why are you okay with that?

Next argument that makes no sense. It's ableist or classist. I'm sorry, what? No one is saying you have to hire an editor. If you view this, if you think people who are anti-AI are being ableist or classist, I don't even know where to start with this one. No one is saying that you have to hire an editor. I know, it's not within the realm of possibility for a lot of writers who just don't have the funds to hire an editor. Well, guess ******* what? You don't have to hire an editor. It's not as if AI is your only option. So if you think this, I'm sorry, but you're going to have to come up with a better argument. You can use free resources. You can have people beta read. You can find critique partners. You can do all of that without spending a single penny. Okay? You are being lazy and willfully like sticking your head in the sand if you think that using ChatGPT is your only option because you can't afford an editor. Now, this is, there's another argument that I want to pull into this because it's kind of similar. Oh, I don't know any other writers to beta read, so I have to use it.

Again, what are you talking about? I know that some people might live in a place that has no writing classes, not much of an in-person writing community. Maybe there are literally no bookstores. You don't even have a public library. There's no option to meet other writers in your town, city, community, whatever. I get that. But guess ******* what? It is 2025. I don't know if you're aware of this, but social media exists. Shocker. This is how writers are finding their people, finding their community, finding beta readers, finding critique partners, finding friends. Okay? I saw a comment recently from someone who was like, I live in a different country and beta readers and critique partners aren't a thing here. So I have to use AI to give me feedback and help me with my book. And I was like, well, okay, I'm not going to like argue with you about what resources are available in the entire country that you live in. But also, even if that were true, which I don't think it is, because beta readers and critique partners are just fellow readers and writers. You're telling me there are no fellow readers or writers in your entire country?

But even if there were, even if that was true, the internet exists. Like they were typing that comment on TikTok, which means they're on TikTok. I don't like this sense of entitlement or uniqueness that people who have this argument seem to feel. Like, well, I'm different. I don't know any writers. I don't know any people to be to read. Guess what? There are literally like hundreds of thousands of writers in that same situation. Every new writer starts off, well, not every new writer. Maybe some people do have people that they know who are writers and can beta read or whatever. But most of us start writing without knowing any fellow writers. You're not unique. You don't get to go to ChatGPT and have ChatGPT edit your book for you because you don't know anyone. That's taking the easy way out. That's taking the lazy option. That's taking the unethical option. You're on social media. Like, There are thousands of writers who are desperately looking for the same thing that you are looking for. Even if you do nothing else, just at least visit the beta reader hashtag. Beta readers wanted, beta readers needed.

Looking for beta readers, just do some research and you can find people. And it might take some time. You know, it might, you might have to kind of fumble through it. Maybe you get some people who aren't very helpful. Maybe you get some beta readers who don't finish and don't respond to your emails. Maybe you get some people who aren't good fits. That's just part of building relationships and making friends. We're talking about relationships 101 here. When you are looking to make friends with people or you're looking to date, sometimes you have to go through some not good fits before you find the person that you click with. And I feel like we're all forgetting too, in this age of AI, where AI is the easy option, It takes more work and more effort to be intentional about building relationships with people, but that's going to get even more important in the future when so many people are taking the lazy way out to use ChatGPT. So just because you don't know any other writers doesn't give you the right to use this tool that is trained off of stolen work. You now have an AI-assisted work, which you have to disclose if you want to query or send to a small press. They're not going to accept it, most of them. Like you are, you are, There are so many issues with this, all in the name of like you not wanting to do the work to build relationships.

I get it's uncomfortable, but you can do this online. If you're an introvert, that's not an excuse, so am I. All right, the next argument I hear is, well, I'm neurodivergent, so I have to use it. And this is sometimes an argument that I hear about like with the relationship part of it, where I can't find beta readers online, I can't build a community online because I'm neurodivergent. And to that, I want to say, again, do you think you're unique? Do you think you are the only neurodivergent writer on the planet? I'm sorry, but what? I saw this video recently of a creator who, she does a lot of content about, like, Friendship and how important community is and having people over to your house or your apartment for dinner. And sometimes it's inconvenient to prioritize your friends because you want to stay home and just like watch Netflix, but you told your friends you go out to dinner. Like sometimes it is convenient to show up for people, but like that's part of having a village. That's part of having a community. And she responded to these comments that people were leaving about like, this is an anti-neurodivergent take. How dare you? And she was like, neurodivergent people need friends too. Neurodivergent people need a community as well. Also, I will just say that in my own experience working with writers, I'm guessing here, I don't take a poll on my clients. But just from the people who have disclosed to me, my clients, that they're neurodivergent in some capacity, I would guess it's like 30 to 40%. I would be fascinated to look at a study of all writers and see what percentage of them fall under the neurodivergent category in some way. I think it's probably higher than the rest of the population. That's just my experience, the kind of like informal stuff that I've noticed from working with writers.

So again, what are you talking about? You're not unique if you're neurodivergent. That's not a reason for you to want to use AI. I'm sorry. I don't buy that. Let's see. Oh, I only use it for brainstorming or giving me feedback. We might have talked about this one already. I can't remember. I don't think we did. Okay, so if you only use it for brainstorming, guess what? You now have an AI-assisted work because you can't come up with your own ideas and so you have to go to a tool that was trained off of stolen work and hallucinate stuff and it's just writes poorly. That's your answer? Writer's block? Feeling frustrated, feeling stuck, not being sure how to resolve something? That is part of the creative process. I worry that as a society, with the ease of AI, that we're just getting to a point where like any mild discomfort or frustration, we run to something to solve that for us, to soothe us. And that's what you're doing if you're running to ChatGPT because you don't know how to figure out something or you don't know how to do something. That's another argument. I talked about this, I don't know, a month or two ago. A question I got, someone was like, well, I don't know how to write this kind of scene. So I go to ChatGPT, I have them give me examples to help me learn, and then I do it. Like, that's not a valid argument either, because again, ChatGPT writing is not good. It is straight up not good.

Why would you want examples from a tool that spits out ****** writing? Would you want that to be your example? Also, again, going back to this entitlement, this uniqueness, every new writer has to figure out how to brainstorm. They have to figure out how to write dialogue, how to structure a plot. Like you are not unique in that sense. Literally every writer on the planet has started new and they have to do those things for the first time. It's just part of a learning curve. It's part of learning how to be a writer, how to improve your craft. And you're never going to learn to do those things if you outsource that to AI, to ChatGPT. Yeah. And same with giving me feedback part. I mean, we've talked about an editor and a beta reader and how those things are different. But like, let's say you Let's say you put your book into ChatGPT and you're like, ChatGPT, give me notes, give me feedback. Well, number one, I wouldn't trust what ChatGPT tells you. But then #2, if you are outsourcing writing because you don't know how to do something, if ChatGPT gives you notes and feedback and suggestions, How are you then going to know how to improve those things? Like if ChatGPT tells you, I don't know, the pacing feels off in this scene, can you actually make that change? I don't know, probably not. Like you have to develop the skills of writing if you want to be a writer. You can't just outsource that part.

And just from a stepping back, yes, writing is hard. Yes, it is frustrating at points. I get it. I've written multiple books. I've worked with clients for years now. It is hard. It is frustrating. Sometimes you feel like you're just muddling through. It's not very good. You wonder why you're doing it. brings up all these big existential questions. Like, I get it. I've been there. But also, Writing is filled with joy and purpose and the sense of fun and play to get to create a new world and characters and scenes and dialogue and you're outsourcing that to a machine because you don't want to do it, you don't know how to do it. There are millions of resources online for you to learn. If you actually want to be a writer, if you actually want to write a book, you can learn for free. But it takes work, and you can't just take the lazy way out and go to ChatGPT to have that do it for you. This is where I question people who see no issue with AI-generated books. People like the prestige of calling themselves a writer or calling themselves an author. And if you are someone who's on the fence or thinks maybe ChatGPT is totally fine, I want you to really sit with that. Like, do you actually want to be a writer or do you just want the title? Do you just want that for validation and ego because you think it's going to be cool to say, oh, yeah, I'm an author, but you don't actually want to write a book. If you don't actually want to write a book, then you don't actually want to be an author.

Okay, final argument that I hear all the time that just like grinds my gears is AI is the future. You have to embrace it or you'll be left behind. Funnily enough, it's like always that, it's always like that same sentiment. That's where I'm like, did ChatGPT write this for you? Anyways, people who say this to me, what I immediately think when someone says this is that they are viewing writing and publishing purely as a means to create as much money as possible in as short amount of time as possible. And there's nothing wrong with wanting to make money as an author. I want to make money, lots of money. I want to be a super successful author. That's fine. But I'm just saying this makes me think of those a year or two ago when ChatGPT and AI were really exploding. There was this like publisher, I'm putting that in quotes because they were a scam, but it was like three or four guys, of course, They were like, we're going to revolutionize publishing and we're going to work with authors and we're going to publish 500 books or 500 titles a week. Because what they were doing is just flooding the market and churning out AI written slop. That was their publishing model. Okay. People like that are not in it because they love writing and reading and literature. They see dollar signs. They see an opportunity to make money. They are willing to write 500 books a week, right, putting that in quotes again. Those people are purely in it for the money.

And if you are only concerned with the title of being an author and you're only concerned with churning out as many written books as you possibly can as quickly as possible, you don't even care about the quality, it's fine if they're AI generated. You are only in it for the money. You don't deserve to call yourself an author and you're a ******* fraud. End of story. That's my take. So one thing I want to say, one more bit of tough love, actually, is this. Oh, no, two more things, actually. Sorry. One thing I want to mention is this idea of research, because I do get a lot of comments from people who are like, well, I just use ChatGPT for research and to assist me with, like, you know, details about this world or these historical things or whatever. Now, obviously, that's a slightly different use case than, hey, ChatGPT, write this book, finish this scene. write this dialogue, whatever. Like that is a different use case. I will give you that. But here's my concern with that. We all know that ChatGPT literally hallucinates stuff. I wish I had saved this post on Instagram, but I didn't. And it wasn't someone that I follow. It was a guy who writes nonfiction. He has a huge platform. I went to, I saw the carousel. It was suggested for me on Instagram. And then I went to his profile and he has a ton of followers. He writes nonfiction. And he was saying that he used ChatGPT to research some things for his book.

Number one, he was asking about math. It was some percentage of people who, it was related to like diseases or infection rates or something. And he asked ChatGPT to calculate something for him. And then he also asked ChatGPT to give him some dates and help place things in context so he could have a better understanding of the subject matter for a book he was writing. And he explained that the math that ChatGPT was doing was incorrect. Because if you really look at what it was doing, it was misunderstanding this, and it was calculating this, and then I don't have the specifics. And then there were, he asked for historical details, and they were just straight up wrong. And he did the work of actually double checking the work and really looking into this. And that's how he was able to say, oh, this is just straight up wrong. Yes, it got these other things right, but that doesn't matter because it got these two very important things wrong. That is what I think about all the time. I've also seen so many examples of ChatGPT being so confident when it's just straight up wrong about something. So why the **** are you trusting ChatGPT knowing it's incorrect? Now, I'm not saying you need to go to the library and look at microfiche and do primary source research. Like, I'm just saying all you have to do to prevent this is not use ChatGPT. Go to ******* Google.

Type in the thing you want to learn about, look at actual reputable sources, boom. It's not that much more work to type in your query to Google. Don't read the AI summary, actually make sure you're getting reputable, factual, correct information. I beg of you. How embarrassing would that be to be a published author, whether it's nonfiction or fiction, and to base your book around some pivotal historical detail, and it's wrong because you used ChatGPT thinking that it was all-knowing and it was correct and you didn't bother to check. And again, if you have to double-check everything ChatGPT gives you, then why are you using it in the 1st place? No. The next thing I want, the final thing I want to say, There are people in my comments and in DMs all the time who regret using ChatGPT. They're like, I just used it. I didn't know any better. It was a year ago. I've learned so much since then. I feel sick to my stomach because I want to query and this agency I'm querying says no AI assisted work. But I used it for this. Is that okay? And then I'm always like, well, I'm not at this agency. Why are you asking me? You have to look at their guidelines. And if they say no AI assisted work and used AI, then you can't submit there. Like, I'm just, I get so many comments and messages from people who regret using it.

So don't let yourself fall into that situation. And if one more thing, if you are one of those people who lies about your AI usage, Because I see them. I see so many authors in my comments and DMs who are proudly in my comment section or the message they sent to me, so in love with AI. They're like, it's the future. I use it for this. It's great. And then I go to their profile. I see that they're an author, they're promoting their book, and they say nothing about their AI usage. And I'm like, Okay, so you're a ******* fraud. You're a ******* scam, basically. You used a tool that was trained off of stolen work. You're passing that work off as your own. I don't understand this. And those are just the ones that are vocal about it. I'm sure there are so many other writers who are watching my videos and who are using AI, but they just don't talk about it in my comment section. And I have said this before, I will say it again, I'm a believer in karma. If you are starting out your author career lying to people, or even, let's just talk about the querying route or the small press route. If you query agents, there's a good chance, because this is more and more common, that agents are putting in their submission guidelines no AI-assisted work at all.

Publishers, traditional publishers, are also starting to put this into their contracts. I just heard a literary agent talk about this recently. That, no, you have to sign something saying that you did not use AI, generative AI, okay, generative, to write your book. If you sign something, a legally binding document, and you have lied because you did use ChatGPT to assist you, I'm sorry, I'm A believer in karma. I believe that energy will come back to bite you, maybe not right away, but is that really the foot that you want to start your author career on is lying to people? And even if you're not querying, even if you plan to self-publish, that can't feel good. It can't feel good to claim that you wrote something or to have, even to have a reader give you a positive review and mention something that you know you didn't write. That can't feel good. I don't know. I think we need to be operating with integrity and authenticity. And if you used AI, claim it. Like, let people know, and then they can decide if they want to support you or purchase that book. I know there are some readers out there who don't mind that. They're fine with it.

So there probably is a market for people who are okay with AI-assisted works. Great. But if you're loudly pro-AI in my comment section, in my DMs, then I better see you being loudly pro-AI on your own page in your own content when it comes to marketing your book. Because readers have to know what they're signing up for. Okay, tough love over. Yeah, I don't know what else I can say. I think that pretty much sums it up. Again, if you want more Tough Love episodes, you can go check out the other episodes that I've done. If you need a kick in the *** about writing, editing, mindset stuff, querying, and then social media also, I think we did, I think that was the most recent one was social media. Or maybe it's querying. Anyways, you can go check out the other episodes. That's my take. Feel free to DM me if you want to yell at me and think that I'm wrong. Lots of people do. y'all, actually, I forgot one I want to mention briefly. A lot of people love to tell me that I'm only into AI because I'm in this for the money and I'm worried about my job as a book editor. Or I must not be a very good writer because I'm concerned about AI. To which I always laugh and say, well, number one, I am concerned about my job as a book editor. I've talked about that on social media. You're not like doing some like gotcha moment. Like I've literally talked about that.

Yes, I am concerned for the future of book editing. I don't know what this market's going to look like. I don't know if there's going to be as much demand. Since ChatGPT, my business has been down. My revenue has been down. So yeah, I am worried. But when it comes to that and also like my own level of skill as a writer, You can still be worried about something without being worried that AI writing will somehow be like better and get a slice of the pie that you want. I don't think, I don't think, I don't view it that way. I don't think it works that way. I care about this because I care about writing and books and authors and I care about the future of art. It is important to me that art is created by humans. I want to preserve that and protect that at all costs. And I think we're in this pivotal moment right now, and I want all of us to be diligent about it. And that's why I'm so loudly, I think even six months or a year ago, I was much more like diplomatic in my language, but now I'm a lot more like, no, **** this, shame on you if you use generative AI. I will publicly shame you because I don't want authors to do this. I don't think it's a good idea for many reasons that I've talked about before. So I will loudly shame people who use this. You can be worried about something without being worried that like AI writers are going to take your job or... You can be worried about both things is what I'm saying, I guess. I just care about art. And if you are listening to this podcast, if you call yourself an author and a writer, you should care about that too. And a reader, a book lover.

Okay. Thank you for sticking with me. I know this was a bit of a longer episode. And in short, don't be one of those authors who messages me that they regret using it. Just don't do it. Resist the urge. I know it's hard. I know writing can be so ******* frustrating sometimes, but it's not the way. No. Okay. This is coming out. This episode will come out. Let's see. right before the holidays in December. So wherever you are, whatever you're celebrating or not celebrating, I hope you have a good holidays or just a good end of December. And thank you for sticking with me on this episode. And this year, I just, despite what I said a minute ago about like my business being down, being a little concerned about the future of my own business and how I make money. I'm very grateful to have this business. I'm grateful to have this podcast. And y'all, I love this community. I love putting this out every week. And so thank you so much for listening. It really means a lot to me. Okay.

Thank you so much for listening. For more tips, advice, and motivation, check out at Your Big Creative Life on Instagram. Or you can follow me at Katie Wolfe Writes on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. If you enjoyed this episode, the best way to show your support is to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to help other people discover the show. See you next week.

 

 

Katie Wolf