Tabor College and academic fear of AI
One of the lecturers in the Master of Creative Writing and Communication degree I’m currently undertaking recently made the following statement on the Course Outline of the course I’m taking with him as lecturer:
Since Creative Writing is a profession relying on your personal skill, voice and understanding, the use of generative AI will not be accepted.
Bit incendiary. I responded saying that this was a short-sighted and disturbingly naive position to take. Said lecturer responded that the course was not a course on the creative use of AI, and the decision is final.
…we want to hear Lee’s voice, Lee’s imagination, mood, feeling and heart. You. The bloke. And AI is not necessarily your best friend in much of this. It is a useful tool, but it is Not LEE. And we love Lee.
So I responded with the following. Beware, it is very long…
Reading time: 14 minutes
UPDATE: I originally posted this blogpost on a Friday. The following Monday I found my access to anything behind the scenes at Tabor blocked. My access to my lecture material, my transcripts, my email… all blocked.
I contacted IT Support and they couldn’t figure out why it was blocked. They tried all sorts of things but nothing seemed to give me access.
Three days later, and still no access. So IT reported the problem up to someone far higher up the system, someone who had been there for decades, someone who had some ‘clout’.
Surprise, surprise, the very next day I had all of my access back. Curious, huh?
TLDR
“The train has left the station, the ship has sailed, pick your preferred metaphor. … (I don’t buy into most of the hype surrounding AI), but you’ll end up working harder or spending more money than everyone else who is using these tools. The technology is destined to be integrated into daily life, for better and for worse.” Jane Friedman
“During a Book Industry Study Group panel about AI use … even those who question the ethicality of generative AI believe that writers and students today should (or must) learn to use it. “What faculty and teachers call cheating, business calls progress,” Bowen said during the panel. “If you say you can’t use a tool or refuse to use it, your colleagues who use the tool will complete their work faster and better.” In other words, AI is raising the average. However, Bowen said, “AI is better than 80 percent of humans at a lot of things.””
[I might be a Level 65 Human Being, but I’m only an average Level 30 business writer, and a beginner (Level 4) novelist; I certainly don’t expect to be in Bowen’s 80% in what’s left of my lifetime, which is calculated by science to be somewhere around another seven to ten years—one of the many joys of being Bipolar.]
“One of JHU’s [Johns Hopkins University] authors, José Antonio Bowen, used AI to find all the places where he may have been repetitive in the manuscript, and he also used AI successfully to help him with fact-checking and citations. He disclosed all of this use to his editors. Some may be surprised that AI can find factual errors in a manuscript, given the problematic results it can generate, but much depends on the tool, the user, and the prompt.”
[ProWritingAid has done this for a while, using AI to find and suggest, as well as generating many reports that identify where the words are overused and repetitive, uses cliches, has sentences that are too long and difficult to read, what the reading age is, compares your text and particularly the structure of your sentences to other published authors in your genre, your text’s pacing, and so on; 25+ reports which allow you to go through your manuscript and correct each instance, or leave it be; the choice is always yours.]
And let’s not forget, Microsoft Word has long had suggestions, prompts and reading age. Is Tabor going to ban students from using Word? PWA? Grammarly? Hemingway? All because they use AI and make suggestions on how to write better? See the bottom of this article about Hemingway and its just-introduced AI features.
Perplexity again:
Several popular writing tools have incorporated AI features in recent years, enhancing their capabilities and offering more advanced assistance to writers. Here’s an overview of some notable tools and when they added AI features:
1. Grammarly:
Grammarly, a widely used writing assistant, integrated generative AI features in April 2023[2]. This update significantly expanded its capabilities beyond grammar and spelling checks, allowing it to offer more comprehensive writing suggestions and improvements. [PWA is much better and cheaper, which is why I bought a lifetime licence.]
2. Jasper AI:
Jasper AI, formerly known as Jarvis, launched its AI-powered writing features in 2021[3]. It’s designed specifically as an AI writing tool, offering content generation capabilities for various purposes like blog posts, social media content, and marketing copy. [And as an online content guy, the content is delivers is brilliant.]
3. ChatGPT:
While not exclusively a writing tool, ChatGPT has become popular among writers since its release in November 2022. It can assist with various writing tasks, from brainstorming to drafting content.
4. Copy AI:
Copy AI is another AI-powered writing tool that has gained popularity in recent years. While the exact date of its AI integration isn’t specified in the search results, it’s been offering AI-generated content creation features since its inception.
5. Other AI Writing Tools:
The search results mention numerous other AI writing tools available in 2024, including Writesonic, Rytr, and Sudowrite[1][4]. These tools have emerged or evolved with AI features over the past few years, though specific dates for AI integration aren’t provided for all of them.
[I use Sudowrite to generate my first drafts. I write around 3-4,000 words of background, characters and their relationships, motivations, etc., plot outline, style, genre, etc. Sudowrite—which can drive the latest ChatGPT, Claude, and various other writing engines—then produces a draft synopsis, which I can edit and change before the software then goes ahead to produce a chapter. Each chapter has 10-16 Beats, which again I can change to my taste and vision. I also dictate the underlying foundation of the novel. Currently Sudowrite offers me the choice of these foundations: The Hero’s Journey, Hollywood Beats, Story Circle, and Romance.
Only when all of these elements are in place can I then hit the ‘go’ button and produce a chapter of content that I have told it to, to my specification.
Each chapter is edited and produced this way, for however many chapters the synopsis dictates is best for the type of fiction I am writing. And where I’m not brilliant at coming up with plot twists, AI can come up with twists that make me go, “WOW!”—and the twists sit perfectly with the rest of the novel and are ‘where did that come from? I didn’t see that coming/I did not expect that‘… Brilliant. Did you note that I can change every parameter to get the first-draft according to how I’d like it? Me. The AI produces content that I tell it to. I then run each chapter through PWA to tighten up the final draft. That, too, uses AI.]
Back to Perplexity…
It’s worth noting that the integration of AI into writing tools is an ongoing process, with companies continuously updating and improving their AI capabilities. The rapid advancement in AI technology, particularly in natural language processing, has led to a proliferation of AI-powered writing tools in recent years, with many of them emerging or significantly enhancing their AI features between 2021 and 2024.
“The other concern is that AI-generated work will be less creative and interesting in the long run, since it tends to generate what’s rather average or what’s already dominant in the culture. (…) a recent study showed that AI could boost creativity individually.” Jane Friedman
“AI is this rainstorm, or it’s this hurricane, and it’s coming towards our industry, right? It’s tempting to just go out and be like, “Oh my God, there’s a hurricane that’s coming and I’m angry about that.” But what you really want to do is, it’s a rainstorm, you want to put on a raincoat and put on an umbrella. If you’re a farmer, you want to figure out what new crops to plant. You want to prepare and deal with it.” The Atlantic’s CEO Nicholas Thompson
Perplexity.ai:
As of 2024, AI creative writing tools have made significant advancements but still have some key limitations. Here’s an overview of what they can and can’t do:
What AI creative writing tools can do in 2024:
1. Generate large volumes of content quickly:
AI tools can produce blog posts, articles, social media content, and other written material at a much faster rate than human writers.
2. Assist with research and data analysis:
They can efficiently sift through vast amounts of data, identify trends, and extract relevant information to incorporate into writing.
3. Automate routine writing tasks:
AI tools can handle basic tasks like spelling/grammar checks, formatting, and simple data entry.
4. Provide writing prompts and ideas:
They can generate creative prompts and initial ideas to help overcome writer’s block.
[In other words, they are a first-draft tool; the human writer still needs to enhance, correct, change, refine, and edit.]
5. Optimize content for SEO:
Many AI tools can analyze keywords and suggest optimizations to improve search engine rankings.
[Magai, which I also subscribe to, is fabulous at SEO stuff, as well as general business social media content. I took a very expensive (many $thousands) SEO course spread over seven weeks—Magai produces better SEO results and content in less than a minute than I could after a day wrestling with writing SEO tags, hashtags, or social media content. It also spits out relevant content and metadata in seconds, whereas I would spend half a day researching them in Google Analytics, the phenomenally expensive SEMrush, etc.]
6. Adapt to different writing styles and tones:
Advanced AI can mimic various writing styles and adjust tone based on the target audience.
7. Offer multilingual support:
Some tools can generate or translate content in multiple languages.
What AI creative writing tools can’t yet do in 2024:
1. Match high-level (the 80%+ as mentioned above) human creativity and originality:
AI still struggles to produce truly novel ideas or replicate the spontaneous creativity of human writers.
[It’s certainly way better than me at coming up with twists to my pedestrian plots, and creating and showing deeper, more rounded characters.]
2. Fully understand context and nuance:
AI may misinterpret subtle contextual cues, cultural references, or complex concepts, leading to inappropriate content.
3. Replicate emotional depth and empathy:
AI-generated content often lacks the emotional intelligence and empathy that human writers can convey.
[The current fact-fiction novel I’m working on has plenty of emotional intelligence and empathy in it, courtesy of the latest version of ChatGPT]
4. Produce high-quality long-form content:
While AI can generate short pieces, it often struggles with maintaining coherence and depth in longer works.
[Works 80% fine for me if I use it as a first-draft tool and amend and change where necessary.]
5. Replace human expertise in specialized fields:
For topics requiring deep subject matter expertise, AI tools may produce superficial or inaccurate content.
[I’ve written and published a book on ‘Expectation’, a psychological phenomenon, and Claude 3.5 Sonnet got the crux of what ‘Expectation’ is and how it can be applied—plus the results it can achieve—spot on. It occasionally gets confused with the names of characters once it gets into the middle- and late-chapters; a simple Word global search and replace sorts that out.]
6. Develop unique voices or perspectives:
AI-generated content often lacks the distinct style and personal touch of human writers. [Not these days. I agree it doesn’t do ‘nuance’, but it’s a first draft; the second+ drafts are what I am here for, and I have no doubt the developers will have AI master ‘nuance’ and Emotional Intelligence within six months.]
7. Ensure 100% factual accuracy:
AI tools can sometimes include incorrect information or fail to fact-check thoroughly.
[It used to, that’s very true. But in 2024 I’ve never noticed Perplexity get a fact wrong, and I check the sources it works from for each search. And as an aside, academic search tools like Consensus AI use natural language to interrogate and return highly relevant results from the ‘Science & Psychology’ literature—”Used by researchers at the world’s top institutes.” And me. When I emailed Tabor’s librarian to let her know about it, all I heard back was crickets.]
In summary, while AI creative writing tools in 2024 offer impressive capabilities in content generation, research assistance, and task automation, they still cannot fully replicate the nuanced creativity, emotional depth, and specialized expertise of top-flight human writers. They are best used as assistive tools to enhance human creativity rather than as complete replacements for human writers. [And that’s what I use them for.]
“…at its heart, writing is a deeply human endeavour. It’s about expressing emotions, sharing experiences, and connecting with others. AI can help us do this more effectively, but it can’t replace the human spark that makes great writing truly resonate.” Lee Hopkins
Citations:
[1] https://www.alwrity.com/post/ai-writers-2024-discover-next-era-content-creation
[2] https://spines.com/limitations-of-ai-publishing-platforms/
[3] https://inboundblogging.com/best-ai-writing-tools/
[4] https://kartikmehtablog.com/best-ai-writing-tools/
[5] https://getgenie.ai/challenges-and-limitations-of-ai-content-writing-tools/
[6] https://writingstudio.com/blog/best-ai-writing-tools/
[7] https://www.peppercontent.io/blog/realizing-the-limitations-of-ai-writing-tools-strategies-for-successful-content-creation/
[8] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/most-important-ai-tools-every-writers-toolkit-2024-4cvse
Hemingway:
The Hemingway Editor has recently added AI capabilities:
1. In August 2023, Hemingway introduced an AI upgrade to its writing tool, now called “Hemingw-AI” [2]. This update added AI-powered features to assist with writing and editing.
2. The AI features in Hemingway Editor include:
– Suggesting fixes for problematic sentences highlighted by the editor
– Offering to continue writing when prompted with the ‘/’ key
– Providing recommendations to improve text readability to a target level [3]
3. These AI features are available in the online Plus version of Hemingway Editor.
Users get 5,000 AI-powered sentence suggestions per month with this paid version [3].
4. The AI integration is described as unobtrusive, acting more as an editorial aid rather than a content creation tool [2].
5. However, it’s worth noting that the desktop app version of Hemingway Editor does not include the AI features – these are only available in the online Plus version [3].
6. The AI suggestions are not always perfect.
Users are advised to exercise judgment in accepting or rejecting the AI-generated edits, as they may sometimes alter the intended meaning or style of the original text [3].
In summary, yes, the Hemingway Editor now uses AI in its online Plus version to provide writing suggestions and assistance, though this is a relatively recent addition to the tool.
Citations:
[3] https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/hemingway-editor
[4] https://www.allaboutai.com/au/ai-reviews/hemingway-editor/
[5] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/hemingway-me-ai-editing-rebecca-forster
[6] https://kindlepreneur.com/hemingway-editor-review/
[7] https://welcome.ai/solution/hemingway
Finally…
Mind you, by the time Tabor’s executive attend to this, I would likely have moved on. It was only recently found out that I didn’t need a Masters degree to get into a doctoral programme. I should have remembered this from the mid 2000s when I commenced a doctoral programme at UniSA’s School of Communication, looking at 3D virtual worlds and their use by businesses. I was at the write-up stage when the 3D virtual world industry collapsed and took my research with it. It’s a bit of a faff copying and pasting the word ‘No’ 90,000 times and try pass that off as my Dissertation. I was on the doctoral programme only having my Hons in Psychology & Sociology… Blame long COVID, my old age and my senility for forgetting that.
It’s like when I first started attempting to convince SME CEOs to have a website: “Why would I want to have a website? I’ve already got a large ad in the Yellow Pages, and we have a fax machine.”
Fast forward five years and I’m attempting to convince CEOs of the need to get with the social media movement; “Why do I want a blog? I have a website…”
*Sigh*
I spent the next fourteen years travelling around the world and writing business books on social media and how social media can generate an ROI. You want to know what some of the audiences of Marketing and PR people looked like from the podium? Go to Central Market or Angelakis Bros and look at the rows and rows of fish, all staring at you wide-eyed and opened mouthed.
Some businesses, marketers, and CEOs got it and got in at the beginning; most didn’t and suffered reputational damage, market share drop, and loss of ‘top of mind’ because of it.
AI is just as revolutionary as social media and the Gutenberg Press. And just as many businesses and academic institutions just won’t ‘get it’ until after everyone else is doing it and they look foolish as their student numbers plummet and they hire expensive consultants to find out why.
C’est la vie.
Lee
Tony Buzek
Hi Lee,
Wow! I’m definitely not as knowledgeable about the benefits and limitations of AI as you are. However, I can say that, based on my own experiences with AI, I strongly agree with your insights. Since my nephew first introduced me to ChatGPT-3 and later you introduced me to Sudowrite, I’ve had quite the journey. Like many who avoid studying manuals, I dove into Sudowrite without reading the online instructions. I quickly discovered that my favorite word, “staccato,” appeared three times in one chapter, and phrases like “gravel crunching underfoot” and “heart pounding in my chest” were repeated often enough to make me realize that while AI can produce mind-bending text, a human touch is essential to guide the narrative in the intended direction.
I’ve come to appreciate AI as an incredible tool for breaking through writer’s block and sparking creativity. However, whether I can transform my expansive sci-fi epic into a snappy, concise, and enjoyable novel depends largely on how intelligently I interact with the AI programs I use.
Thank you, Lee Hopkins, for sharing your struggles with Tabor College. I wish you all the best for a successful outcome.
PER ARDUA AD ASTRA!