Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
I’ve resisted writing a post about AI for several reasons.
- The tools have evolved (some would say devolved) at a rapid clip, especially in 2025 and it’s been hard to keep track of their scope and application. Specifically, I have been working with ChatGPT and Google’s CoPilot.
- Bias. When ChatGPT entered my field of vision, it was early 2024. In my day job, I wear a few different hats – primarily writing, digital marketing and web development. I’ve witnessed first hand how these tools have disrupted these fields. Most of us don’t like change, and resist new tools or methodologies that interrupt our normal, well-entrenched patterns. It’s taken a while, at least for me, but viewed objectively, AI needs to be calmly evaluated against the benchmark of what we would consider, ‘successful outcomes’.
As an author, I will state my view. I abhor the use of AI to create content and stories. The conception of a novel idea, connecting to my creative muse, knitting the threads of a story, plotting a path forward for my original characters – the genesis of creating something truly unique and bringing that into fruition through grunt and labour over hours and days and months – that is what we are fighting to protect.
Anyone, anywhere can write a prompt into an AI tool and have a story delivered in the time it takes to boil the kettle. The consequences of this is that the barriers to entry to creating content are lower than ever. The output – in terms of quality – is getting better and better. In fact, you can train AI models (Gems on Google’s CoPilot) to replicate your favourite authors. You can (illegally) feed the AI with books by that author, and have them create something ‘new’ in the tone and style of said author.
Tired of waiting for that Game of Thrones sequel? AI can take care of that. Feed the beast and it can do a passable job and create something for you during the next ad break.
This is not the future. This is right here, right now.
Which brings me back to the original premise of why I’m writing about my relationship with AI today. Given the ease at which this content is created, AI slop is everywhere. Given the option, we’ll often take the lazy route and would rather click a button. Who can blame us? We’re fighting for time, are overworked and juggling lots of tasks already.
The content of course is usually sub-par, but importantly, getting better with every new release version of our preferred tool. Many are already aware of the AI giveaways such as the overuse of the em dash (‘—’). Funnily enough, those who read novels will already be familiar with the symbol. It has been used for centuries and is very common in classical literature. Non-readers tend to see these as red flags more than readers.
Social media is probably the place where you’ll see more AI generated content. Emojis anyone? User engagement is getting worse on these channels because of a fatigue where everyone sounds the same. There is a lack of originality on social media, which is leaking into the internet through AI created copy on websites.
I attended an AI conference in Dublin two months ago and it included a panel of experts from Google, various Digital Marketing Agencies, Content Hub creators and advocates of free speech. It was very interesting to get some balance. While there are undoubtedly benefits to these tools (I’ll get to that shortly), there is an element of the Emperor’s New Clothes, where marketers, content creators and social media teams are outsourcing many of their tasks to AI, and in the process, while creating more, with less resources, the output isn’t resonating with their audience leaving them to scratch their heads. (read more about my thoughts on marketing and the conference here)
As an author, am I totally against AI? No.
However, I will never use AI to create stories. I would never read an AI-written story. I respect the creative arts and feel that authors should be rewarded for their efforts in the currency of time and money.
At the end of the day, ChatGPT and similar LLM’s are tools. They can be used for nefarious and benevolent purposes. Here’s how I use it:
- Creation of images for my short stories. The Weekly Kook series are quick, free-to-read stories. I prompt AI to create an image which captures the essence of the story, which I can then share on social media and on my newsletter. For novels (paid and professionally edited), I use a cover design illustrator. Yes, a real person.
- Feedback. I have trained AI as my digital marketing assistant. I have educated it on various aspects of book marketing, comparing author-specific tools, and occasionally bounce ideas off it to understand trends, patterns and behaviours. I’ve uploaded metrics and data from my newsletters to compare against industry standards. I’ve imported years of advertising ad data to rate effectiveness of my campaigns and isolate best-performing ads so that I can tweak accordingly. These data sources are often hundreds of rows in excel docs, and using AI to disseminate this info has returned excellent insights. I will preface that the tools are not fool-proof. Mistakes are made and it often ‘hallucinates’, creating sources and linking to assets that don’t exist. Blind trusting AI is a recipe for disaster. We still need ‘human-in-the-loop’ intervention, especially where data is involved.
- Ideation. New blog post or newsletter ideas. We don’t need to run with them, but there’s no harm in getting some thoughts from our trained tools.
- Subject Research. I use it as a substitute for search engines to conduct extensive research on a topic that I’m unfamiliar with. A well-trained model will use reputable sources to frame a response that is both relevant and credible.
In summary, as it relates to my life as an author, AI complements the peripheral activities I do, such as marketing, research, admin and support.
My novels and short stories will never be written by AI. If they were, then the stories would no longer be mine. They wouldn’t be my voice. My thoughts.
That’s my line in the sand.