One of the Toronto Star’s strongest contributors, Katharine Lake Berz wrote an interview between a novelist and a book critic about the value or downsides of AI as a writing tool.
The debaters:
Stephen Marche: novelist, recently publishing “Death of an Author.”
Steven Beattie, book critic.
Though the discussion does meander through favouring AI to opposing it, both debaters find it has some merits and some drawbacks.
The merits
AI is a powerful tool that can save time, energy and money. It can produce something concrete and worth reading in minutes if not seconds. And that result can be massage endlessly with AI until one is satisfied with an outcome suitable to one’s mindset. So AI can produce concrete results quickly and these results can be modified quickly and with no limits to the kinds of modifications.
The drawbacks
AI is a machine with no human attributes, no sentience, no emotions, no sensitivity. It just produces, but the result is antiseptic, completely objective with no feelings, bias, emotion or sensitivity.
______________
I use AI on a fairly regular basis, probably at least once in every computer work session. My uses vary from simple summaries to complex editing of articles to give me a certain slant to them. I can ask AI to write something with a personal tone to it, or something clinical in feel. Maybe something sounding professional or something with a humourous side to it. AI produces whatever variation I want in seconds and it is always significantly different than the precvious version.
AI is a very worthwhile tool that saves me time and energy. It produces something usable and worthwhile in seconds, something for me to evaluate, analyze and consider. I examine it, keep what I like, discard the unacceptable and in seconds I have material that enhances my original work with supplementary or complementary material.
AI works like a team mate rather than the orginal thinker of what I am working on. It is the team mate who assists, not the superior who dictates. It doesn’t tell me what to write but plays with what I write like one playing with a Rubic’s cube. Changing, modifying, adapting, trying out and giving me facets to examine, consider and evaluate. And it does all this at lightening speed.
AI isn’t human
It may be a valid criticism that AI isn’t human. The results it produces are sterile and antiseptic, with no warmth, feeling or emotion that human writing has. What’s the reall issue here? That a machine can offer results worth consideration almost instantly, supplanting the production of the slower, more staggered pace of a human. If you want emotion in the writing, ask for it. Anger, humour, professionalism, elementary-toned, whatever. Just ask. AI will produce it and you can be the arbiter, judging if it the final product is worthwhile.
Like an axe or an egg beater, AI is a tool, the value of which is in the eye of the beholder or the hands of the user.
The Marche-Beattie debate feels like it wavers but its conclusion implies AI is a useful tool as an assistant rather than the foundational creator. There is no arguement with their implied conclusion and thankfully, neither debater suggested outright rejection of AI use.
I know I wont give it up.
