March 11, 2023

Why ChatGPT won't be writing my books

ChatGPT is all the rage these days. In a nutshell, it is an AI chatbot that has been trained and can be trained on any library of existing text. As a result, it learns how humans write and can imitate that writing. Since its introduction, we've seen a growing number of books written by ChatGPT or through the aid of ChatGPT. In some cases, the situation has gotten so out of hand that magazines such as Clarkesworld have stopped accepting new submissions due to the deluge of ChatGPT-written stories.

I won't dive into the moral and ethical ramifications of books written by AI. Instead, I want to let my readers know that none of my books will be written by ChatGPT. The reason for me is simple, and it's based on why I write in the first place. I don't write to make a lot of money (although I certainly won't complain if that ever comes to pass), nor do I write to see my name on book retailer shelves. I started writing and continue to write because I have stories I want to tell. They are my stories, and I want to tell them. That is what brings joy to my writing. If ChatGPT wrote a story for me, the story would be its story, not mine. I also won't get to derive the joy from writing it, which defeats the purpose of writing in the first place.

One day, writing may stop being fun for me, or I'll run out of stories I want to tell. If that should happen, I'd most likely stop completely rather than turn to an AI to write on my behalf. In the meantime, I'll continue to write my own stories because that's what brings me joy.