01/11/2026

Note about AI

Artificial Intelligence. The debate is on the news and rife across social media. Here’s my take on it …

We live in a world dominated by technology in a way that was undreamt-of in my childhood. Some of it is good, some of it is not, and a lot depends on how and why it is being used. Do I believe in technology replacing people? Absolutely not! But if technology can make people’s jobs and lives that little bit easier? That’s got to be good, surely?

But AI is more complicated. There’s the question of how AI is trained. I can’t speak across the board, but in the world of books and literature, I believe it is unethical to use an author’s work to train AI how to write, without their permission. I write a book, I sell that book to a reader, I get paid royalties. But if AI reads my book and replicates my style in creating another piece of writing - I get nothing. If I were to read another author’s work and then replicate that, I’d be charged (quite rightly) with plagiarism. So what’s the difference?

I believe in human creativity. The power of the imagination in creating stories (or art or music). An author spends weeks or months writing a book, pouring their heart and soul into it. AI can churn out a book in minutes. Whether you think one is better than the other is a matter of opinion BUT what matters to me is whether the creative process is properly acknowledged. This book was written by (a human author) v. this book was created using AI. There are people publishing books written entirely by AI but not declaring that fact. This is making an already-difficult market even more over-crowded, making it harder for the real authors to get noticed. And as AI written books are self-published - after all, no agent or publisher is going to touch an AI book with a barge pole - that’s giving self-publishing a bad name. Which makes it even harder for the many indie authors out there (like myself).

And that has led to a vociferous Anti-AI movement in the book world. There are the so-called instant tell-tale signs that AI was used in a piece of writing - such as em-dashes - like the ones I’ve just used! But authors have been using these devices for hundreds of years, long before AI was even thought of. AI uses them, because it was trained on real authors who used them! This has led to some authors having their reputation destroyed by accusations of using AI, when they haven’t. Which makes it all the more difficult to spot human-created from AI.

And the anti-AI movement now includes cover artwork, marketing materials, social media posts …

“NO AI” is an admirable slogan - but it is very hard to avoid ever using AI in anything you do.

SO THIS IS WHERE I STAND (in case you were wondering):

• I do not use AI to create my characters, locations or stories. They all come from my head (influenced by people and places I know).

• I do not use AI to write any part of my books. Ever.

• I do not use AI to proofread or edit my books - although it’s hard when I haven’t yet discovered how to turn off co-pilot when I’m using Word. But, whilst co-pilot is useful for highlighting typos, I don’t always agree with it and frequently reject its suggestions!

• I do not use AI to design my book covers - my artist friend Heather draws the original artwork, which I scan and send to The Choir Press. They add the titles, blurb, ISBN, barcode, etc. To be fair, I don’t know how they do that.

• But I do use online search engines when I’m researching something, and I know these use AI to find answers. I never rely solely on the AI summary, I prefer to go to the source websites to read the information for myself. I view this kind of AI as an assistant to speed up what would otherwise be a very lengthy process.

• I use a program called Canva to design marketing and social media posts. Not everything on Canva is AI-generated - and I avoid using the option to generate using AI - but I know that some of my posts may contain some form of AI. I regard this as a tool to help me. I am an author, not a graphic designer.

I hope you found this helpful!