There's no doubt that AI is creating more of the content that we consume, whether they are books, images, or videos. I heard stories of self-published AI-written books entering the market two years ago. It's also getting harder to distinguish what was created by a machine rather than a person.
What's troubling to me isn't just that AI is taking over our lives. (And in case they're monitoring me, I, for one, welcome our AI overlords!) It's the deception on the part of authors who use AI. To me, stories reflect the way a writer views the world and how they have experienced it. Like art, books are an expression of us as human beings. People read books not just to ingest facts or prose, but to feel a connection to the story and characters on the page. Learning that a story I read was written by AI would feel like finding out that a person I've met recently and have been connecting with is actually a machine. I would be devastated if one of my favorite authors ever used AI to write their books, even if AI could imitate their writing style perfectly.
I'm afraid that we'll see more controversies like Shy Girl, especially as AI improves on a seemingly daily basis. I can only hope that authors choose not to use it to write their stories, or, if they do, they disclose the role that machines have in their works so that readers aren't misled.
