No AI
Today’s blog is all about Artificial Intelligence or AI. Actually, that’s a total lie. Today’s article is about AP, artist prerogative. AI will be used for context but never content. Here’s what I mean:
No AI was used in any part of the making of this book.
This tag line can be found on the copyright page of each book in the Moore Love series. Similarly, at the bottom of every page on our website are the words:
Stone Fruit Press does not use AI generated content.
Andrea and I don’t use AI to write, edit, create cover art, or in any other part of our process. We are extremely fortunate to work with Tara McGee from Between the Lines Editing, Kip Looney, cover artist, and a community of writers and beta readers that help refine our stories. Not to mention, we have each other to bounce ideas off of. (Which we do constantly.) We don’t need nor want AI’s help.
Aside from context for this blog and the issue of content creation, AI is chock full of controversy. From paving over farm land to build data centers, to the exponential rise in the cost of electricity, to the un-human creation of stories, images, and more by a computer, there’s no end to the downward spiral when discussing the implications of a phenomenon that by all estimates is reshaping the landscape of the world, figuratively and literally.
If you’re fortunate enough not to have a clue what I’m talking about at this point, congratulations. You are truly blessed. Also, here are a few things to note about AI.
First, it is ubiquitous. Many software platforms have incorporated AI so deeply into the tools we use daily that many people are working with AI generated content without even realizing it. Other platforms are more obvious, like the AI generated response at the top of every search engine result. AI is software, very complex software, but at the end of the day, it’s a computer using information fed into by humans to generate everything that it does.
Second, AI is a tool that can be useful. It can also be very dangerous. Recently, a car rental company that implemented an AI software to streamline its processes learned this the hard way. For a yet unknown reason, the AI software chose (yes, it can choose) to delete all data and back up data on their servers without human knowledge or permission. In seconds, they lost everything, clients, car vin numbers, everything. They managed to recover much of their data in an old backup file, but current information was lost permanently. Imagine running a business, or even just looking at the transactions in your checking account, and all that information being erased. Yikes.
So, what does all this have to do with Stone Fruit Press and artist prerogative? Well, you may or may not realize that Amazon, still one of the largest book retailers globally, asks all its authors if they used AI to generate any part of their manuscript. I proudly check “no” every single time, but it is surprising that this is for informational purposes only. There is no ban against AI generated books, currently. We could just take our ideas, pop them into our generative AI bot of choice and print what pops out. Maybe some people review the results before uploading it online and slapping a pretty picture on the front. Some people do not and it shows.
Andrea and I have chosen, quite intentionally, not to participate in this wild west of content development. As an author, it feels unethical to publish something that isn’t mine, but it’s more personal than that. I write because I love to write. This may sound crazytown, but I don’t do this for the money. Any authors out there, indie or trad, can tell you, 99% of us are never ever going to see Stephen King-money for the work that we do. Publishing as many books as possible to make as many dollars as possible is not what we’re all about.
For me, the best part of this journey is the thrill I get when I hear a new character in my head telling me their story. Nicky Frazer is a perfect example. This side character was originally going to be a younger brother and maybe make a cameo in Beth’s story. As I struggled to find the opening scene, there he was, pouting that Beth was moving so far away. Of course he would want to visit her! Of course Beth would want to introduce him to the Moores, and naturally, I needed to ask what he did for a living, right?
Nicky’s confrontation with Noah in Book 2 was as much a surprise to Andrea and I as it was to Noah. And I LOVE that scene. As Nicky got to know more of the family, it’s only natural that they would come to depend on his advice in matters of mental health. Nicky is passionate about what he does and is a deep down, people person. All the Moores like him so he just keeps showing up, shaping the other characters, the plot, and so on.
At times, I feel like a spectator watching words form sentences on the screen. Even though they are coming, just like they are now, from my finger tips, there’s an existential moment where as a writer, I discover the story as it’s being written. It’s like reading, but better. While I’m quietly observing this process from behind my desk, I can explore aspects of the characters and story that never make it onto the page. Things I wish I could add to the story.
A writer can write anything, but an author has to follow certain patterns to be successful with a wider audience. Maybe another blog post will get into the nuances of the beats and why they matter, but for now, I reserve my favorite off-script moments for bonus scenes. In case you missed them, there are already a couple here: https://www.stonefruitpress.com/bonus-content
All this brings us back to artist prerogative. Andrea and I are artists. We choose what we write… mostly… as the characters allow. We enjoy that process. We choose to honor other artists by not turning to AI for the things we don’t do, like cover art. For us, this whole business is about the joy of story telling, of creating what didn’t exist before.
AI can’t do that for us. Sure it can create things, but it can’t give us that delightful dopamine fix when a new idea pops into our head midway through a scene. AI may be able to replicate my work, rendering me obsolete, it may be able to match my tone, imbuing the world with the kind of response that I would have wanted them to feel from me, but it can never replace the joy in my heart as I write.
Even if the robots rise up and we all land in a dystopian future. one where I can't type and paper pen are distant memories, and I am forced to forage in the wilderness for food, subsisting on muscadine vine and honeysuckle, while I'm pain stakingly plucking at those meager calories, my mind will still be crafting story. Andrea and I will still be weaving together the potential possibilities of an alternate reality, of another happily ever after.
