Will AI Take Over Fiction Writing? by Keri Kruspe

 

In her May 7^th podcast in 2021, leading author Joanna Penn stated “Artificial Intelligence is already part of our lives in the tools and services we use every day. As AI development accelerates, how can authors … use it as leverage to expand income and opportunities?”

I love how optimistic she about the future of being a writer. She stresses how AI would help rather than hinder writing in the future.

However, there are other thoughts out there that contradict what she proposes. In her article of Oct of that same year, AuthorNicole Hillbig outlines a scarier prospect. She states, “Writer is not a protected profession.” She goes on by saying the AI algorithm can fall back on a massive amount of text data to learn to “write”. They glean this information from the vast amount of text published online. With self-publishing being so immense, the AI has learned general writings skills in higher detail.

Does This Mean, as Self-Published Authors, we've shot ourselves in the foot?

Don’t hyperventilate just yet. AI writing isn’t something new. There are lot of free programs available that you can use AI can use to help you write. Writesonic, AI Writer are just a couple examples. And they’ve been around for a while now.

You may ask yourself, now does the actual AI writing compare to a human writer? Never fear, the AI does have some limitations. In her article, Ms. Hillbig outlines them: 

AI cannot capture ambiguous image or text content from data records.

These rise mostly because of cognitive connection to values that rise from literary, religious, mathematical, sporting, and facial linguistic contests. The AI can only select a single relevant piece of info from these data sets. It has a hard time evaluating these separate contents and can’t think associatively as humans do.

We check and adjust the emotional and as well as social values of any given thought. It seems metaphors and imagery are causing problems for AI. It simply doesn’t understand them.

An AI cannot create stories that involve personal experiences filled with emotions and cognitive perceptions. 

I don’t have to tell you that is the core of writing. Putting your feelings and impressions on paper for others to experience is the main reason we writers exist in the first place. Bringing other people along for the ride is the cherry on our story-telling sundae. While an AI can transfer pure information, the emotional element can only be communicated by people. Only we can relay a sense for it in order to share it with the world.

Can Humans and AI Just Get Along? 

As Ms. Hillbig continues, she reiterates how the AI has an enormous learning advantage and can already create reading data with little difficulty. But, she emphases, we shouldn't be afraid AI will replace us. While we can use the advantages AI brings (i.e. helping with writer's block and learn how to grow beyond our own capabilities), they do have limits. The AI has a moral and ethical problem that always has to be corrected by humans. 

To help back this up, the Bureau of Labor Statics in 2020 states the "employment of writers and authors is projected to grow 9 percent from 2020 to 2030. About as fast as the average for all occupations."

Will People Still Read in the Future? 

An Egyptian writer in 2,400 BC claimed, 

"Writing – for those who understand it, it is more useful than any office/it is more pleasant than bread and beer, than clothes and ointments/it is more luck than an inheritance in Egypt and than a grave in the west.” 

Funny how something 5,000 years ago has endured.
Story-telling has been with mankind since the beginning. While the delivery may change in the coming decades, I feel the need for stories will increase. As mankind continues in their isolated existence (think I’m wrong? Next time you’re in a restaurant, see how many people are on their phones instead of talking to the person they’re with), the need for emotional stimulation will be needed. The other day I heard someone claim the technical advancements in the next 50 years will make the last 50 years look like we’ve been sitting around the campfire in our cave, banging on rocks with bones for entertainment.

In the future as well as today, people need stories in whatever they watch and listen to. Even if the only stories they get are short bursts of digital multimedia that blends an economy of words with audio and video. And behind the images there has to be some type of story to capture the masses attention.

To quote NeilGaiman back in 2013: “Fiction has two uses. Firstly, it’s a gateway drug to reading. The drive to know what happens next, to want to turn the page, the need to keep going, even if it’s hard, because someone’s in trouble and you have to know how it’s all going to end … that’s a very real drive.

And the second thing fiction does is to build empathy. Prose fiction is something you build up and you alone, using your imagination, create a world and people it and look out through other eyes. You get to feel things, visit places and worlds you would never otherwise know. You learn that everyone else out there is a me, as well. You’re being someone else, and when you return to your own world, you’re going to be slightly changed.”

He goes on to say: “If you were trapped in an impossible situation, in an unpleasant place, with people who meant you ill, and someone offered you a temporary escape, why wouldn’t you take it?” I love how he follows up with a quote from JRR Tolkien “the only people who inveigh against escape are jailers.”

What's Old is New Again 

When researching this article, I came across a lot of folks claiming actual books will become obsolete. They even predict that digital novels will disappear as new technological advancements happen. Even if they do, the need for storytelling will not. Sure, we’ll see new art forms emerge, but they will become slightly more niche as time goes on.

But I put this to you… the more things change, the more they remain the same. Right now I’m listening to new renditions of old vinyl records instead of listening to the songs I’ve downloaded. Why? Well, I am a bit nostalgic, but I also think the quality is better. To be honest, I like the sense of privacy. No one keeps track of how many times I listen to a particular song verse another. 

I feel the same way about the physical books I purchase. There’s nothing better than opening a novel for the first time. Hearing the binder crackle as I indulge in the luscious scents that come from the pages…