I noticed it a little while ago on Substack a couple of people’s posts were written by AI. But now it seems to be far too many to ignore. The exact same syntax. It’s not an accident. No two people speak or write alike so what the fuck is this nonsense? It’s AI, that’s what it is. I don’t have a problem with AI as a tool. But post after post written the same way by different people … nope.

It’s so prevalent that people are starting to sound the same. It’s like all traces of distinctive human voices are being erased so people all blend into each other. It’s not good. This is more than handing AI a post and asking for it to be tidied up. There is clearly very little concern for their own voices. If you’re going to do that, at least give better prompts. Tell AI to write it in your voice and skip the AI giveaway bullshit. I get that that is a lot easier to do for a published authors than unpublished but FFS … why are you using AI to write Substack notes? How much time are you saving? It’s happening on all platforms but I have noticed it the most on Substack. I assume (probably wrongly) that the people doing this are feeding their own words in and getting things rewritten. It’s isn’t going well, folks.

I use AI to scramble around blurbs and give me tweakable options. I have asked for taglines and loglines. They’re interesting but let’s just say humans are not being replaced in the publishing industry anytime soon. I use it for Ad copy every now and then. Sometimes it’s great sometimes it isn’t. What I’m saying is that it’s hit and miss. I like my voice. Some of my humour would not translate well via AI. It just wouldn’t. Where AI is helpful for me (because I’m training it to be helpful to me) is in small increments. Shit that takes time I don’t necessarily have. And also as a sounding board. When I’m creating something new for a particular story, having the ability to ask AI some questions about viability and whatnot, is helpful. Much more these days when AI is producing links to real website that pertain to the question asked. Or, to quickly tell me there is no such device or whatever. Then, it’s fun and useful. It’s not writing anything for me, it’s giving me explanations and showing me how I could use a particular techy thing.

Anywho, as you were. I was just a bit tired of samey notes on Substack. Meanwhile, [Bravo Romeo Bravo] has cemented as the 10th Veronica Tracey Spy/PI novel at over 11k. Ten chapters so far and the urge to keep writing is strong. I wonder if it would’ve been so strong had I not allowed myself to actively avoid writing for a few days? (Knowing my brain was working on scenes but wasn’t yet ready for me to take over the controls.)

The other use for AI in my world is graphic novel style images of my characters for trailers and so forth. I would not have gotten close to what I see in my head had I been trying to explain what I see to a person. No one lost a job because I used AI for my images – had that not been an option I wouldn’t have images.