Japanese author Rie Kudan sparked controversy when she revealed that 5% of her award-winning book was produced using AI. Artificial intelligence has been one of the most important topics in the writing community.
With AI, all one has to do is write a prompt, and the AI will simply write based on all the info it has access to. What is important to understand is that AI doesn’t “think” rather, it compiles information one word at a time based on what it thinks would make sense after the last word.
The Dangers of Artificial Intelligence
This is why AI can do things like give summaries because it most likely had access to summaries on the internet. However, the art of storytelling is not something that simply be handled by Artificial intelligence. However, there are some accepted ways of using AI. Some authors like to use AI for things like inspiration, outlines, or even story structure. However, the line seems to be when things like dialogue, and worldbuilding are entirely made by AI. Storytelling is a mentally intensive and difficult process, so it makes sense that an author would want to use AI.
Ethical Situations
A basic novel is typically over 45,000 words, however, genre standards like epic fantasy end up having novels over 90,000 words long. That is a lot of words for one person to write. This is why authors have editors that help with things like pacing and story structure.
However, using Ai can set a dangerous precedent for the novel industry. For example, there have been people asking “Chat GPT” to write novels, and they place those same AI written novels on Amazon. Novelization can take some writers up to 9 to 12 months to write a novel, and people flooding an already oversaturated market doesn’t help indie authors struggling to make it.
Hard Work
The content that an artificial intelligence like Chat GPT creates is based on the information it has been fed. This means that if it were to be asked to write a fantasy novel, it would be directly stealing from currently published works. This is why George R.R. Martin and many other authors collectively filed a class action lawsuit. Rie Kudan using AI to write 5% of her novel is fine, because it was only 5%.
The fact of the matter is that she put on a lot of hard work to get the novel to award winning quality beyond the minor usage of AI. However, there are many who simply don’t put that work in for months on end, and place that stolen work on Amazon. Ultimately, AI is a tool that can be used for inspiration, or it can be a tool used for profit. It is up to the artists of the world to choose how or if they want to use AI.
Written by Kenneth Mazerat
Sources
CNN: The winner of a prestigious Japanese literary award has confirmed AI helped write her book by Christy Choi and Francesca Annio
Featured and Top Image Courtesy of Alexander Kolomietz’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
First Inset Image Courtesy of Michael Dain’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
