Artificial intelligence (AI) could write the next book you buy, and some experts say this is bad for creativity and accuracy.
AI writers are taking over online bookshops. As of mid-February, a new report found that ChatGPT was listed as the author or co-author of more than 200 e-books in Amazon’s Kindle store. These books include “How to Write and Create Content Using ChatGPT,” “The Power of Homework,” and the poetry collection “Echoes of the Universe.”
John T. Behrens, a professor of the Practice of Digital Learning at the University of Notre Dame, told Lifewire in an email interview that these systems are smart because they are good at imitating the way people use words. However, they are not so smart that they can check for correct meaning, use, or specific facts. “That’s still a job for people.”
Authors of AI
It’s easy to write and publish a book on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing store with the help of AI software. Reuters says that there are dozens of online guides that show how to use AI to get published.
Behrens said, “New AI-based technologies like ChatGPT make text that sounds a lot like text made by humans.” “These systems are especially helpful for writing because they can suggest ways to phrase things or write the first draught of a paragraph. The text they create can be put together to make chapters or even books.”
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In an email, Bob Rogers, CEO of the data science company Oii.ai, said that speed is what makes AI software for writing appealing.
“It took me and three other people four years to write my last book on AI,” he said. “My most recent book is called “ChatGPT, an AI expert, and a lawyer walks into a bar…” It took a weekend to write “The Evolution of Creativity and Communication.”
Hruy Tsegaye, CEO of Mindplex Media, an online magazine and showcase for AI tools, told Lifewire in an email interview that readers may have lowered their standards, which could make AI literature more popular. He said that people are starting to watch more videos than read books.
“Writing is becoming less important, and video is making that happen faster,” he said. “People’s attention spans are shorter now, so content needs to be interesting and short. Chatbots can help with this but at the cost of quality.”
Behrens pointed out that AI software can be helpful for some tasks. When used as a writing tool to help a writer come up with more ideas or find a different way to say something the writer already knows, it can speed up the writing process and give readers more to read. But, he said, “if it is used as a replacement for human writing or editing, it could lead to boring or even nonsensical or harmful material that would be bad for readers.”
Rogers said that AI software like ChatGPT could be helpful because of how quickly it works and how good its grammar is. It can also add some variety to non-fiction writing because it can be used to say the same thing in different ways.
“The biggest problem is that ChatGPT writing is, in a word, boring,” he said. “It won’t take a stand or add a twist to a story, so authors still need to add their own touch to avoid writing that is bland and boring.”
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Lie or Helpful?
Rogers said that even with how fast AI writing software is improving, it is unlikely to replace human authors any time soon, at least for fiction and high-quality nonfiction.
“It will replace a lot of mid-level writing, like social media posts, which only have one or two important facts,” he said. “When you give ChatGPT a few ways to say the same thing, you get a good mix of content to share. Another example is report copy, which often has to be written in a certain way, which is easy to do with ChatGPT.”
But Behrens said that more and more, AI-based tools would help authors. AI can be thought of as a kind of autocorrect.
“Right now, we use spell checkers and grammar checkers that are based on artificial intelligence and take over small parts of the writing process. We could see this happening slowly with longer pieces of text, “he added. “However, at the moment, these systems still rely on people to decide if the words get the point across and need to be edited by a person.”
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