John Dean – Crime Writer

I feel that it is time to address a subject which I have avoided for far too long and yet is, by far, the most important challenge that today’s writers face.

I am talking about running out of teabags. No, seriously, I am referring to AI, of course. Let me be clear right from the beginning -.Artificial Intelligence may be brilliant technology but I am extremely wary of the damage it can do (also, if you chuckled at my teabag quip, remember that it is highly unlikely that AI would ‘think’ to introduce it into the piece).

I have several reasons for disliking AI. One is that, having worked as a freelance journalist for twenty one years before becoming a full-time writer, I often picked up jobs to produce factual sections for magazines, books and websites. It is not too dramatic to say that I believe AI represents a potentially fatal blow to the world of freelance and in-house journalists because it will be seen as a better way of doing such work.

I can see the argument used in other business sectors that computers can do the ‘boring’ stuff, leaving the more creative work to human beings but we all know that in too many cases it does not work like that. An editor faced with a journalist who says that producing a feature will take a couple of days when they include the writing and researching, will inevitably be tempted by the idea of asking AI to do it and it arriving in twenty minutes – and for a fraction of the cost charged by the pesky human.

I would make one exception; I can see the benefit in AI ploughing through medical research that would take a team of humans twenty years to analyse, particularly if it is work so vast that it would not be done otherwise and the outcome dramatically shortens the wait for news treatments.

However, that is my only exception and I believe that humans should still be used for the vast majority of work. That does not just relate to journalists, it also covers book editors, proofers, public relations people, marketing specialists, publishers, literary agents etc. These are highly skilled people who bring a unique human judgement to the task. I hate the idea of them being replaced by AI.

Then there is the quality of AI’s writing. Like many authors, I have had features written about me with the journalist bringing their powers of observation and judgement into play to produce something unique. I may not always like the result but as long as it is factual, I can’t really object. That’s the value of getting a human to write the piece.

However, there are also profiles of me online that I assume were written by AI – I say ‘assume’ because no one interviewed me or told me that the profile was being done.

I am guessing they were written by AI because they are 90% accurate (there is the odd factual error but that could be said of humans, of course) but the final piece lacks the creativity that a human would bring.

It is bland and lacking something – I am thinking of one piece in particular that would be hugely flattering were it not spewed out by rote. AI does not bring that crucial judgement to the task that a human does.

And so finally we come to authors. I sure that AI, if asked to produce a novel/non-fiction book/collection of short stories/play/screenplay, could produce something perfectly serviceable (probably already has done) but it will be lacking the individual touch that the author brings to the job.

If you take the genre in which I work, crime fiction, that could mean that the end result is lacking the inspired twist, unique motive, deep, dark secret, brilliant red herring that humans bring to the job and which make reading (and writing) crime fiction such a joy.

I am extremely wary of those who advocate a greater role in the process for AI, editing/ checking grammar etc (and I have heard it from some authors). We have to take a stance and take it now.

I know that in many ways it is too late – that the genie cannot be shoved back into the bottle but,, as an industry, we must guard against the dangers at all times, otherwise we run the risk of losing something special as authors and associated crafts become an endangered species.

Picture used courtesy of http://www.pexels.com