John Dean – Crime Writer

This is why I do not like, nor trust, Artificial Intelligence (AI).

I am at the age when dementia becomes a consideration – my father died with it – so I have been somewhat concerned over recent weeks and months to return to the previous day’s writing on my laptop for a quick refresh before moving on, to find the occasional sentence that I do not recognise or remember writing. They are not written in my style and sometimes use words that I do not.

Last night, I had my answer and, thankfully, it is not dementia, although the alternative, which I had suspected for a while, does not put the mind at rest.

My laptop, like so many of the new designs, has an inbuilt AI system, there whether I like it or not (for the avoidance of doubt, Not).

The programme keeps pestering me to help with the editing or write new passages but I either say ‘no’ or ignore it and it goes away until its next attempt. One writer I know became so angry, she typed a four-letter word and the AI programme admonished her for being rude!

Anyway, back to the story. One of the word files I have on my desktop is a kind of dumping ground – it contains regularly used phone numbers, fragments of codes, the occasional line from my in-progress novels which I do not need but may do so eventually, vague plot ideas, names yet to be allocated to fictional characters etc etc.

I must have inadvertently clipped the AI symbol while working on my latest novel last night because the programme produced half a page of text using what was already there in my dumping ground, starring my fictional names, weaving in the spare sentences and dropping in the numbers, all weaved into the rudimentary semblance of plot.

It’s not particularly good but that’s not the point – I am the writer, and what’s more, it could be risky – what if next time (the icon is hovering next to this word document, as I write this and I can’t get rid of it) without me noticing, it drops its text on a page that I think is finished and do not intend to return to? What if the next person to read it is the publisher/agent?

There is one good thing to come out of this little episode, it’s given me a great idea for a novel!

Picture used courtesy of Pexels