The biggest downside of using artificial intelligence to write books is that it robs the artist of the opportunity to observe, study, and understand oneself deeply.

AI will be a great tool for making money and helping with efficiency. It will free up time for some writers to focus on ‘more important’ matters. But the degree to which we take shortcuts will come at a cost to the artist who misses out on the individuation process.

When used sparingly, AI could be just as useful as any other search engine. I’ve found it helpful to ask ChatGPT for synonyms in particular. In this case, the artist might not lose much in the way of insight and transformation. However, when outsourcing entire books, paragraphs, and sentences, transformation gets bypassed and nothing is learned. Dosage and the degree to which it serves you and the audience matters.

Ultimately, AI cannot replace the inward processes: the ability to make meaning, grow aware, navigate chaos, sense the body, express the self, create from a place of true nature, and experience the intrinsic rewards of walking a difficult path.

Using AI to write entire books might one day be seen as no different than taking inspiration from multiple books. But why give up the rare and precious opportunity to examine ourselves deeply in this one life we’ve been given? If we avoid what is difficult, we miss out on the real fruits of the practice: that there is something within us that wants to be expressed, known, and understood.

Do readers benefit from a writer’s use of AI?

If AI can one day produce better-written, more complex, and more entertaining books than even the best writers, then maybe nothing is lost for the consumer.

It all depends on consumer preferences. It’s impossible to speculate future preferences, but my current perspective tells me that:

Purely human stories hold meaning to me.

If I know that AI wrote much of the story, I experience a loss of intimacy and connection to the work. The thought lingers that “this was created by AI,” a subtle intrusion between creator and audience.

It’s the equivalent of knowing something was factory-produced vs handmade. My life is filled with useful and beautiful factory-produced things, which makes the few handmade things I own take on a special significance.

I hope these thoughts serve you well on your writing path.

Cheers,
David