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AI-Assisted Creative Writing
Just a fad?
AI is just a fad.
That’s what my father said when we last spoke about it.
To be fair, for context: He was analogizing Large Language Models and their use in fiction writing to the publishing disruption that was the e-book.
“Everybody predicted the death of bookstores and physical books,” my father said on the phone from his South Florida condo. “But bookstores are coming back in a big way. People want to hold a book in their hands.”
It’s true, somewhat, that bookstores have rebounded. As for whether it’s specifically people who once eschewed physical books for digital ones now “coming back,” I’m not so sure that’s the best description. Some people, like my wife, took a long time to warm up to tablet-reading; now it’s all she ever does. My father, on the other hand, has never read a digital book.
Regardless, his statement “AI is a fad” assumed the difference between AI-written novels and human-written novels will be clear cut. “People will come back to the humanity,” he told me. “I always say, ‘read a book, feed a family.’”
“That’s because you’re a good man,” I said.
And he is. My father is generous, and never squandered the good fortune of his working years as a baby boomer. Free college…
