Friend or foe

Artificial Intelligence is fast becoming the biggest game-changer of this century. I use it in my day job all the time. As a software engineer, it can save significant time and provide great assistance in correcting code and suggesting efficiencies. It’s excellent for summarising business documents as well. I even find I can recognise an AI-generated sentence over one crafted by a human.

So, to what extent should an author use AI? To be clear, I do not use AI to write my stories. The imagination, voice, and storytelling are entirely my own. AI has its place as a research and productivity tool, but it cannot replace human creativity. My stories come from my own ideas, experiences, and writing style—AI is just a helpful assistant for fact-checking and brainstorming, not a ghostwriter.

That said, AI is massively useful for an author in other ways. I use it predominantly for research. Ask it what spells exist in the Book of the Dead relating to the mouth—it answers instantly, without lots of Googling. While working on Realms Beyond, my editor commented that my description of an airport baggage facility was nothing like reality. I asked ChatGPT to describe a chase through an airport luggage handling area. Boom—almost identical to mine… thank you!

It’s also great if you need a little confidence boost. Put in a paragraph and ask AI what it thinks—you’ll get positive feedback and sometimes a little advice. Sure, it’s just an AI, but getting a response that says your passage rocks can be motivating. Just be careful not to let it rewrite your work. As I mentioned before, AI-generated sentences often sound nothing like the original. It tends to over-exaggerate descriptions and add flowery attributions to dialogue.

AI has its place. It’s a valuable tool, but it cannot replace the author. And it certainly does not give the gut-wrenching, brutally honest criticism that a real editor does!