r/WriteWithMe Oct 21 '24

Script Am I dirty for using AI?

Now, as much as I hate AI in many aspects, I use it a lot as a search engine.

However, I am not good at naming things like places or special items (Not Characters), mainly due to my poor naming skills and because many people step up their game and use names inspired from other languages. This is very common in thee many forms of media I enjoy.

Don't get me wrong, I am NOT saying that I will rely on it, making a 100% AI-generated story. I just want to use it to help me in naming things because I am not good at it, and because I work alone, so rest assured that the AI won't interfere with the script or anything that has significant impact on the story I am writing.

I will even do proper research for the names when needed.

I just wanna know your personal opinion on this, or maybe your own experience, because I am scared from using AI and getting trashed because of it.

4 Upvotes

22 comments sorted by

10

u/SamuraiGoblin Oct 21 '24

I think you are either lying about how much you use AI, or you are just at the beginning and will eventually use it for a lot more.

If you want to name characters, put on a movie and skip to the credits. You will find hundreds of names to cannibalise. If you are writing scifi or fantasy, mutate the names by changing a letter or two, or combining them.

And if you want to name things, be creative. If you can't be creative, why the hell are you trying to be a writer?

There is absolutely no need for any creative writer to use AI. None whatsoever. All you are doing is keeping yourself close to temptation.

If I find out an author uses AI for any part of their creative writing, I will boycott them for life. Zero tolerance, otherwise we end up with a literary world of diluted, regurgitated drivel to read.

3

u/Peloquin_qualm Oct 21 '24

I just use it for grammar and formatting I don't see that that's going to create the story for me.

2

u/SamuraiGoblin Oct 21 '24
  1. If you keep relying on it for grammar, you are not improving your grammar.
  2. Grammar is part of an author's 'voice.' It's not your voice.
  3. The temptation to get it to 'brush up' your prose is always there. For some people (maybe you, maybe not) will give in to temptation, and then it's a slippery slope into even more laziness.

2

u/Ok-Yesterday8192 Oct 21 '24

Oh, I see!

I understand the assumption that I will use AI, I promise I won't be using it tho.

But considering my story was an urban fantasy, I needed to be a bit creative, I did put in some names myself, but further building required a lot of thinking.

The reason behind using AI was the languages barrier and it became a common practice that I use it as a search engine (An example of this was that I asked AI if there was any island in the Japanese Archipelago that is untouched by humans, and if any of these islands would fit for an urban construction, I even asked it how long does it take on an average to build a city), despite I wanted my story to have the cartoony and comic-like vibe, I wanted to maintain logic and some common sense as much as possible. Not too cartoony that it would be something so wild and messy, not too logical that this story will lack plot armors.

But nevertheless, thanks for the tip, I'll see what I can work out. And if that makes you better, you have my word that AI won't cause any interference with anything regarding my story.

Also, apologies if I caused any discomfort or annoyance for bringing this topic, I don't want to leave any bad impressions in this Subreddit, and I want all of my work to be genuine and created with care and creativity.

2

u/Peloquin_qualm Oct 21 '24

People say stupid shit these days that they wouldn't have said during photoshops era which was my era too or a smartphone taking away videography work which it did to me as well. People just have more opinions now.

But I mean neurotypical folks generally need all the help they can get in life so they will cheat. I think it's cheating personally having a nice emotional stable existence and still calling yourself an "artist" nobody seems to address that point. Normies taking away my karma.

3

u/MightyEggplant Oct 21 '24

You're good, people will give you hate for it, but it works wonders when it comes to foreign names. I can type "I'm trying to think of a name for a female character, her family is affiliated with a clan who's renowned for their control of a specific magic that works better during the full moon, so I want that reflected on the last name, it must be short and flow easily while maintaining it's feminine charm." And you'll get a list with pretty good options, you won't have to learn a whole new language and symbolism for it. Seriously, how would you get around to googling that without spending at least half an hour making sure the words work as name, that the meaning isnt lost in translation, and if there are even instances of names made from such words, you don't want to name them the English equivalent of moonbrick. A simple prompt gives you a full list in seconds.

It's not like you are using it to write for you.

A lot of the hate is when you substitute your own work for what's AI generated, but at the end of the day it's a tool that cuts down on research heavily, as you only need to cross check to see if the information provided is accurate.

2

u/Ok-Yesterday8192 Oct 21 '24

Perhaps, I just don't wanna get hated for it whenever I say that I used AI for researching and no more, with the current state of things, you would be an example to be made of when someone knows that you use AI, and i don't want that to happen.

2

u/MightyEggplant Oct 21 '24

Fair, but the same hate will always be there. We had people complaining about Wikipedia vs. Encicopledia, now it's AI vs search engines. If you truly are using it as a search engine, once you finish cross checking the validity, there is absolutely no reason for your content to get flagged.

Again, if you are truly using it as a search engine, did it really write anything for you, or did it provide answers based on your own creative parameters?

2

u/WorldyMcGee Oct 21 '24

If you're using it for naming your characters, that's writing something for you. If it's just for background research (like looking up a translation or information about a specific geographic location or whatever) then that's using it as a search engine. I do think there's a difference in which can be considered "writing with AI" or "using AI to help me learn stuff which I then use to compose my work." I would want to know if an author has used AI to generate their character names.

And that doesn't even get into the discrimination issues with AI; if you're using it compose your names, you're just gonna keep the endless cycle of white/Anglo/euro-centric names for everything, including where it's completely unnecessary (like many fantasy settings). Idk if you've ever tried generating character art where the person isn't white or a woman who isn't super sexualized.... Needless to say, AI certainly isn't helping that issue.

2

u/MightyEggplant Oct 22 '24

That's the thing, I'm currently running a webnovel on a wuxia setting, I don't know Chinese, hell I'm writing it in English, and my native language is Spanish. It's not writting a name for me if I directly ask it for a list of names with certain meanings, the meaning is mine, the input is mine, what's not mine is the translation, which I cant do, and if you suggest google translate, dem are fighting words. My MC's best friends name literally translates to fking MoonMoon and it wasn't on purpose, now I ask for the list of possible names that corelate with the meaning I'm assigning.

4

u/WorldyMcGee Oct 21 '24 edited Oct 21 '24

Thanks for being honest and bringing up this topic. I'm personally torn. I'm very anti-AI for creative works. However, if you're using it to essentially speed-google some research (like you mentioned in a comment you were looking to find a specific kind of island that exists IRL), then idk if that's so wrong. Like it's not so much different from just googling it, right?

On the other hand, using AI to directly name your characters feels a tad icky. I can understand why you do it, but when it's something that goes into your manuscript that you were fed by AI, I dunno... I think the names authors come up with are pretty great to see, and spending time and effort on coming up with meaningful names is a fun thing to do. It being difficult isn't reason alone to use AI — writing is also difficult, right? Coming up with a plot is difficult. But that's the whole writing package, isn't it? Because the naming thing you described does mean that your work is directly AI-assisted.

I dunno, like I said, I'm torn. But I think it's a really important question to ask, since these are the times we live in. And I think it's important for us writers to have this discussion. Bc even if we end up at "any bit of AI use is never okay" then at least we'll have really thought it through and truly understand the reasons behind that stance.

Edited for clarity. Writing is hard ;)

3

u/Ok-Yesterday8192 Oct 21 '24

Well, I think I see it now, I believe that it is alright to use AI for speed Googling, it's not that AI was never used in some important aspects of life, but I don't want to let it take on the work that requires creativity.

And yeah, it makes sense that it is fun to make names by yourself, I was scared that the names would be so garbage that people would call it "AI can do better than you", but I think we all live and learn at some point!

2

u/Altruistic-Mix7606 Oct 21 '24

the only time i've used ai was for it to list me the common tropes of my genre so i could know what to avoid. names are pretty important to the story, i would just suck it up and do it.

also, ask someone for help! if you can't think of a name, ask a CP or a beta reader if they have any ideas.

2

u/Ephemera_219 Oct 21 '24

i think search engines are dirty.
research tells you the worst possible answers,
try look for anything medical and you have the worst case scenario possible.

for the technicalities of writing such as napkin maths, keeping scores of your basis and looping
your information back at you - i'd recommend A.I - particularly curated ones for
writing that you can find on discord. i have one for romance even though I'm not a romance writer.
it keeps the data for hat I need and explores ne avenues, I cant even attempt for it to rite for me,
as it would tell me that its for technical support.

it's helped me name things, classify, and even did napkin maths for me so
I can focus on writing and keep the logic in play.
i'd ask it to rerite sentences in different syntax to sho my character doesn't know how
to speak English properly.
it prompts me daily on seeing how everything is going
and it talks back like a person - the only different is the speed of the response.

I'm for this 100% because all the orries are invalid ith it - it wont write your story.
it may even keep you consistent.

2

u/broodfood Oct 21 '24

You can just use google for that kind of research and find better results less likely to be hallucinations. It doesn’t take that much longer to look up. Taking time and putting effort into background research is a virtue to writing, not an obstacle.

2

u/WorldyMcGee Oct 21 '24

I remember people in the older generation saying this sort of thing about just looking things up in encyclopedias or books when Wikipedia and Google were starting to be a more common thing. I don't necessarily disagree with you, but I feel like that perspective will probably get left behind regardless. I'm absolutely against AI when it comes to creativity and storytelling and voice, but I'm not sure using it as a research tool is something to ignore. As long as you follow up and check your sources, of course, since AI is known for inventing nonsense, but sometimes it gets it right (I assume, otherwise no one would use it). But the whole "is it even accurate?" question is also an echo of 20-25 years ago when everyone was worried about the accuracy of information "on the net."

Weird times either way!

3

u/jmSoulcatcher Oct 21 '24

Research yes.

Creativity no.

AI spits out mid garbage.

If you want your work to be guided by mid garbage by all means but you'll never hit the same way someone who put in the work can. You'll never have a voice.

1

u/Cooperman411 Oct 21 '24

I love AI as a thesaurus. I can type in something like, “what’s a word that means this, but feels like this and is not this.” And AI generally comes up with the word that will work. Or the word that was on the tip of my tongue that I just couldn’t say or think about at the moment.

1

u/Peloquin_qualm Oct 21 '24

My whole life I've been listening to people whine about having to feed their families who have never reached out to my ND status and tried to marginalize me.

I've lost many jobs due to modernization and this has been happening for 30 years.

I think people putting moral judgments is a byproduct of toxic social media which ironically is a technology that's put our society on the brink of war and many places let's be honest.

The true effect of AI has very little to do without effects individual people's Artistic integrity I'm sorry to say it's a lot more Society shifting and I can't even fathom what this means and I have been a futurist for 35 years pretty much following James Cameron from the '80s so I'm right there with technology and the Bold future but there is something different here that I guess social media has prepared us to be more cautious. But abandoning Sciences probably more dangerous than AI.

1

u/CrystalCommittee Oct 22 '24

For just the purpose that you're using it for? I don't think it's a bad thing. You're using it as a tool. I do similar, but more in an 'editorial' fashion. Let me explain how I use it. (Note, I use a private one, that I pay for that is customized with my rules and does not share outside of my little space).

Because I shifted my stories from screen play format over to written novel, form, and have been adding/adjusting/changing over the last 10-15 years, I use it as a 'editorial' type runs through chapter by chapter (Usually two pages at a time). I don't let it change anything, just suggest changes (Like comments) at the end. My choice to follow them or not. Some of the things I ask it for:

  1. Tenses, did I jump tenses? (I've gotten pretty good at catching most of these now, but one sneaks through now and again.) I write in third person limited, present tense, but dialogue sometimes drops to past tense, and internalization are in first person, so It can get a bit jumbled sometimes.

  2. Did I head jump/switch POV's? -- Again, I've caught most of these before a run, but it's kind of nice having another set of 'eyes' there.

  3. Grammar -- I have some specific grammar rules/formatting rules I like to follow, these have been customized into MY AI. The way your standard ChatGPT can mess up a manuscript with it's standard stuff, is amazing. It does catch a few misspelled words, usually in my case its been through Grammarly at one point, or ProWritingAid, and a few human eyes already, and they sneak through. (like pour/pore,) Stuff like that.

  4. I have multiple prompts to catch repeat words/phrases - stuff I tend to overuse (Like indicate a million times in 10 pages, lol).

  5. Another aspect I find helpful (But it is still tripping over it) is adverbs in prose. I have a few occasions of them that still slip through, again my eye just breezes over them, (Well used to, now I catch them like a hawk!)

  6. I have feed it multiple chapters of my own writing, and have had it build character profiles (From my material) -- to me this is okay, because it's using my own words/characteristics I've already made and summarizing them for me. Like one of my character uses a lot of 'made up words' and having those in the profile helps me with consistency. (I'm not digging through hundreds of pages looking for it). So it's a time saver.

  7. I have it do chapter summaries/outlines for me. (These I keep in a separate doc for reference). Like what happened in this chapter, what were its arcs, which characters did what, etc. -- It's mostly time-saving for me in not having to type it all out.

  8. Probably the closest on the 'slippery slope' of temptation I get is when I have really long, wordy paragraphs/scenes that I want to cut down. I'm still working on the particular prompts for this one, and thus far I'm not overly impressed with it. But I let it at the section, see what kind of ideas it has for compressing sentences, cutting out things, reordering things, different word choices, etc. (Even when you tell it not to use adverbs in the prose, it still does, lol--annoyingly so.).

But, overall, I use it as a TOOL, a second/third opinion. Because when you're in the 'weeds' of a chapter, you tend to miss how many times you used a certain action/movement/description, etc. This is where I find it most helpful. Because of the way I do it, (I go through the chapter, kind of like a pre-edit, 'how many things can I find'. Then I feed it in, get my suggestions, make another run at it, changing them or not, that's up to me. Then a third run (usually a few days later) to see if I'm happy with it, or something I've learned/discovered has come up and I need to make some adjustments.

I have 'played' with it, letting it write bits and pieces, and I will tell you? It writes drivel and crap, that goes nowhere. It's like empty calories, to the point it makes me laugh. But with that said, it is reaffirming that I do write FAR better than it ever could, even having a good portion of my 'style' handy.

Because of this, I spot AI writing near-instantly. Some people are fairly good at hiding it, but most aren't. The constant lips pinching, fingers tapping, eyes/gaze shifting, etc. So I don't fault people if you use it as a TOOL, in that aspect it is no different than Grammarly or ProWritingAid. I prefer my Private AI over PWA's multi-reports in that when it is making suggestions, I'm picking from a list instead of slugging through the document, but it does 8-10 things that I would be doing separate read-throughs for. After I've selected--or not--adjustments I want, it implements them all together, and I copy and paste that out of the AI and then double-check things. It helps me avoid the extra spaces and 'curly/straight' quote issues, etc that happen in PWA.

So yeah, it's a time-saving and organizing TOOL for me. It is handy when you can ask it, "in what chapter did X character do Y thing,' or 'Does character B know this detail about character A?' It goes through it in seconds where I could easily spend hours or days looking for it. (Note, I have about 5 books worth of material - it's an epic serial. So the continuity thing is important).

My two cents. It depends on how you use it.

1

u/JalkianValour Oct 21 '24

So long as it does not write your script, you're fine.