Books and AI By: Janaya Buckley

We are in an era where Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become an integral part of our everyday lives; ChatGPT, Claude AI, Google Gemini and more are being used more and more every day. AI can be used for many purposes, and one of these is writing books. 

Books written by AI are often criticized for their lack of creativity, repetitive or bland prose and ethical problems such as plagiarism of other books and author styles. Simply typing in a prompt into any AI program, one can receive a book entirely crafted by Artificial Intelligence in a matter of minutes. There is a wide range of how AI is used in books. Some books written by AI are merely used for editing and feedback, treating it as some sort of beta reader or editor, while others are mostly or entirely written by artificial intelligence. 

For AI to write books, data is scraped from apps and other writer’s work. This is where ethical issues come into play. An AI-generated book could be plagiarizing the work of other authors who put their blood, sweat and tears into writing an original book. In this, using AI to write a book lacks creativity and cheapens the fine and long held traditions of authors worldwide.  

Many writers spend months and even years polishing their narrative and craft, while some others just type in a prompt into ChatGPT and receive a fully written book that is garnered from data gathered by legitimate authors. As such, a book written entirely by AI cannot be copyrighted and this is a good thing. If a book is written partially or entirely by AI, the author should properly disclose it in their published book, but instead, many AI using authors do not. Rather they hide the fact that they use AI entirely, such as DarkHollow Academy written by Lena McDonald, who left an AI prompt in her book but otherwise did not state that the book was written by AI. The prompt specifically asked the AI to copy another author’s writing style; which is why this method of authorship should be considered unethical. 

While AI can have its uses that are not entirely bad, such as editing and providing  critiques, as a writer it is always best to try and seek out feedback from valid sources, as they can provide insights and critique that AI cannot. AI often simply praises a writer or tells them what they want to hear, rather than offering genuine advice to improve their craft. It can become a slippery slope of praise that simply inflates an author's ego which will eventually diminish their work. Traditional artists and writers should always be supported over AI generated material.