AI: Make Your Mama Proud of You (Mary Strand)

This month at YA Outside the Lines, we’re talking about artificial intelligence (AI) and whether, as writers, we use it or avoid it.

Short answer: I don’t use it. In the absence of a lobotomy, I expect that I never will.

A friend referred to it on Facebook as “plagiarism software,” and I nodded but didn’t comment, especially since her post got a lot of pushback.

But, yeah, I’m still nodding.

Hey, people have tried to take shortcuts since the dawn of time. Cliff’s Notes, anyone? If you’re the sort of person who likes shortcuts, go for it. I’m not your mom, after all. (Unless one of my kids is reading this, in which case: didn’t your mama teach you better than that?)

Technology is fantastic, and it will continue to evolve, and that’s all good. To me, the issue breaks down to this: who REALLY created the novel or song or other work of art? Or are you misleading people?

There’s an utterly adorable “photo” of a “baby peacock” that’s been circulating on social media. People, this is not a baby peacock. A baby peacock, like an adult female peacock, is a drab color to help it escape predators. This “photo” was generated using AI without admitting it. But OMG, I can’t believe all the people who actually believe it’s real.

Just before I sat down to write this blog post, as luck would have it, I got an email from TuneCore, a music distributor. (I’m also a songwriter and musician.) Subject line: “Mary E. Strand, want to co-create with GRIMES?” It offers fans of the Canadian musician known as Grimes the chance to “co-create” a song using YOUR song and Grimes’s AI-generated voice. Grimes gets 50 percent of the royalties.

She’ll get exactly zero percent of the royalties on MY songs, but again: I’m not her mom. Or your mom. (But should I note that this is what we call a sucker deal?)

My view of life is that you can do whatever you want, as long as you don’t hurt anyone else and as long as you tell the truth. Is that book by you? That song? That research paper? Or did AI create all or part of it? If so, shouldn’t you put a disclaimer front and center, something like the following: “This [novel] [song] [AP History paper] [loving note to my mom] was created, at least in part, using AI”?

If it’s the note to your mom, no doubt she’ll be tickled pink by your thoughtfulness. For that matter, so will your AP History teacher.

Our society has real problems right now with credibility, honesty, and flat-out decency. We have two U.S. Supreme Court justices (that we know of so far) who’ve accepted HUGE “gifts” (aka bribes) from partisan donors in exchange for (let’s not kid ourselves) voting “the right way” on important cases before the Supremes. Those justices haven’t recused themselves from the cases, let alone resigned from the court. What is that telling our kids? If as a society we let these justices or other dishonest people get away with things like this, what is that telling us about ourselves?

I’m frankly alarmed at the utter lack of decency and morality that is increasingly exhibited by people who should know better. We should ALL know better. As I like to say, who raised these people?

But hey, AI. It’s not an all-or-nothing thing, of course. I just wrote a new song last week, “GenX for the Win,” and I got a lot of help from Señor Google as I tried to nail down which movies, TV shows, actors, musicians, etc., were definitively GenX. Technology is great, thank you very much. But it’s a huge leap to go from researching GenX pop culture to asking AI to write the lyrics to a song with my name on it about GenX pop culture.

I stand with my friend who refers to AI as “plagiarism software.” Unless, of course, you list as co-writers “[Your Name] and Artificial Intelligence.” Truth in advertising!

Or maybe just make your mama proud and create your own damn art.

Mary Strand is the author of Pride, Prejudice, and Push-Up Bras and three other novels in the Bennet Sisters YA series. You can find out more about her at marystrand.com.