ChatGPT and writing: should they mix?

Let’s throw it back to the college days.

Let’s throw it back to the college days. (Well, this is ironic, because I’m still in college. But I digress.)

Do you remember the days when you had to submit your paper through a website called turnitin.com? This was a bona fide way for your teachers to know if you plagiarized–that is, taking someone else’s writing, pasting it in your essay or short answer, and pressing that “Submit” button. You were relieved if you were an honest person–like me–who never used someone else’s work as her own and got less than…25% on each reading that tagged along with my papers. Heck, the system was so thorough, that it even would find old quotes from past papers and label them as plagiarism if you included them in your writing (I don’t understand how that’s plagiarism…but look. I’ll admit I’m a bit ignorant here.) So, what would writing a portion or entire novel using ChatGPT be called? Writing or plagiarism? Who’s to really say?

According to BuiltIn.com, the definition of artificial intelligence is “a wide-ranging branch of computer science that aims to build machines capable of performing tasks that typically require human intelligence.” So that means that this computer I am typing on right now has some element of AI in it. My smartphone has some element of AI in it. My five-year-old Fitbit probably has some nuggets of AI in it. Now, don’t get me wrong. Obviously, I’m not against using AI to function daily. I use it, and there’s definitely things I do that depend on it. But my problem lies in the world of writing, where real people depend on reading real words documented by real people. To help me further expound on my stance, I want to give two examples.

“Sorry, we’re all full and exhausted!”

I applied for an internship in March of this year with a publishing company that seemed reputable and knowledgeable of the publishing world. However, I discovered that this…”publishing house” couldn’t be anywhere close to considering themselves “book publishers”. I was promised my own published novel at the end of four months, a full business account set up, and a bunch of other things I cannot remember for the life of me, but one thing I won’t forget is one email I was sent, describing how swamped their editing and writing team were, and how if any intern wanted their novel finished and published in the four months’ timeframe, they could use something convenient and less time-consuming, developed by OpenAI called ChatGPT.

What is ChatGPT?

Taken from its website, ChatGPT is a large language model that specializes in creating “human-like” dialogue that “makes it possible for ChatGPT to answer follow-up questions, admit its mistakes, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests.” In summary, it is a public tool used to create and curate text, answer questions, and in a greater light, act as something like a Google Home or Amazon Alexa thing, whatever they are called. But as stated earlier, my problem is not ChatGPT. My problem lies with the laziness of using ChatGPT as a writer. Needless to say, I did not continue with that internship.

Actually, I read an article written by ChatGPT about blogging while working at a previous internship and found myself absolutely…disturbed at what I was reading. There was no sense of humanness. No personality. It was hallowed and wordy. There’s no problem with small or short-term content, like asking for ideas or asking for help with a word. But as a writer, we can tell when something was not written by a human. Which leads to my second example.

“We can make a lot of money from this.”

In a meeting with a former boss and another board member, or whatever he was, we discussed plans for the magazine and how we could, in his words “pump out more content so we can get more AdSense and revenue.” My boss was in charge of writing blog posts about entrepreneurship, which he did just fine on his own. But I noticed one of his posts were lengthy, almost redundant and stripped of any type of personal feeling you’d get from a blog here on WordPress, which was different than what he usually pumped out. It made me feel a little fearful, and that was one of the reasons why I knew I wouldn’t be working at that job long. “But we could make a lot of money from this,” my boss tried to explain as I expressed my disdain. Fortunately, I was able to find a better and more honest work environment that was not trying to specialize in making more money but supporting the art of writing to convey messages that people want to hear.

Conclusion

To answer the million-dollar question–should writers use ChatGPT when writing? My answer is…

What does a writer do? They write. And if you are taking a LLM and basically plagiarizing and not writing, then you are not an author. You cannot say that you wrote this thing. You are a thief, and you should go to prison. But we know that’s not likely to happen.

The world of writing can be a stressful, scary and confusing one when you’re just starting out and haven’t set in your own personal groove. But as I always like to tell myself: “do it right the first time so you won’t have to do it again.” Writing is a very tedious process that involves a lot of care, detail and consideration. LLMs like ChatGPT, cannot and will not capture the essence of the process.

So, I suggest using the tool wisely. If you feel it’s wrong to use AI in your writing, then don’t! If you feel like it’s ok to use AI in your writing, then you probably still shouldn’t. I think when it comes to writing, traditional and non-controversial methods are the way to go.

Here are a list of very good articles and posts I read while writing this post that gave me a lot of insight into AI and the writing world. I agree with some posts, and I disagree with some posts. I wanted to provide a well-rounded view. (Make your own choices.) Personally, I have used ChatGPT in preparation for this blog post, and I have come to find good use in using it for…nothing at all related to my writing process.

How do you feel about AI and writing? Leave a comment below!

Navigating the evangelical fervour of AI absolutism by Scientist See Squirrel

How Writers Can Use ChatGPT Ethically in Fiction by Jill Williamson

How OpenAI develops their language models (mentioning ChatGPT)

Writers Respond to a Survey with a Chasm of AI Mistrust by Grant at Tame Your Book

Bonus: Exclusive: Authors Guild to offer “Human Authored” label on books to compete with AI (just read today)