Cailin Riley Books

If you’re not already riding the AI train, baby, it’s time to hop aboard.

It’s no joke that AI, or artificial intelligence, has become the next big thing in content creation. Many companies are making tools, such as ChatGPT and Gemini, to assist with information gathering and writing. While how these tools are used greatly varies, many people have started questioning the ethics of using AI in a creative fashion.

In this post, I’m not going to speculate on how AI might impact authors and writing jobs in the future. I personally do not ever see AI taking over these jobs; I simply see them as being a new type of tool for us to use.

That said, I do think there are things to keep in mind when using AI for content creation and I will go over those.

Use AI to brainstorm ideas.

AI is a great tool to use to help you brainstorm ideas for writing. Whether it’s for a writing assignment such as a paper or a whole book, you can use resources like ChatGPT to give you random ideas on plot points and overviews. The important thing to remember is to be as specific as possible with your request. For example, you will get better ideas if you ask ChatGPT to “give me plot ideas for a fantasy novel with a feminist message and involves a band of many characters” than if you just ask it “give me ideas for a fantasy book.”

Use AI to help edit your work or offer ideas to break writer’s block.

Let’s say you have a paragraph written but it sounds wonky to you or uses the same word too many times. You can ask an AI tool to check your grammar or suggest different words. (“Re-write this paragraph for me only using the word ‘unique’ one time.)

You can also use AI to rewrite content with a different tone. For example, maybe you want your speech to be a little more dramatic. (Re-write this speech for me using more dramatic and persuasive language.)

Don’t use AI as a whole-ass ghostwriter.

ChatGPT’s latest version is pretty good but there is still no better creative brain than a human’s. When you write your own content, you will be better aware of discrepancies and plot holes when they pop up. As good as AI is getting, it still cannot be 100% accurate with technical writing. It also cannot be creative on a human scale.

There are, of course, ethical considerations when it comes to writing for school or a competition. But I’d argue that even if it is just a personal project, AI makes better sense as an assistant to the writer, not the actual writer itself.

What do you think? Have you used AI to help you write and why?