I receive spam emails almost daily from people wanting to tell me how I can greatly improve my website by using Artificial Intelligence. Trust me. I will never let Artificial Intelligence write content on my website or write my blog posts. Furthermore, I will never let artificial intelligence write a short story or novel and then put my name on it as the author. 

Here’s an example of the emails I receive offering to help me write: “I have just took an in depth look on your  janetmorrisonbooks.com for the current search visibility and saw that your website could use a boost. We will improve your ranks organically and safely, using state of the art AI and whitehat methods, while providing monthly reports and outstanding support.”

Yikes!

It took me a minute or two to get past, “I have just took…” so I could glance over the rest of the email. I continued to read out of curiosity to see if there were additional grammatical errors. The only thing that would have made this email worse would have been if it had gone on to say, “I had saw….”

Thank you, but I think I’ll just keep plodding along and doing my own writing.

Fortunately, almost 100% of such emails are identified as spam. They don’t clutter up my inbox, but I have to skim over the subject lines before I delete them from the spam box.

Writers Guild of America Strike

On April 18, 2023, the vast majority of members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) voted to go on strike. Yay for them! They’re striking to get higher pay and guaranteed residuals from the streaming of the TV shows and movies they wrote. I applaud their courage in drawing attention to the way their work is undervalued. They’re being taken advantage of and this was their only choice after negotiations broke down.

Writers never have gotten the respect they deserve because their faces are what people see when they watch a TV show or movie. But make the actors ad lib and see how entertaining that is.

WGA members also don’t want their writing talents replaced by narrative and scripts being written by AI.

Granted, some shows I see advertised don’t appear to have any substance. Maybe the writers of such pitiful TV programming will find another way to make a living during the strike. They should.

Screen Actors Guild Strike

On July 13, 2023, members of the Screen Actors Guild in the United States voted to go on strike for several reasons. One of the reasons was they wanted better protection against AI. They don’t want their images to be hijacked and used in movies or videos without their permission. I’m glad to see the actors standing up against AI.

Another example of AI

I have a new email account with another company since the Windstream data breach fiasco around June 1. One thing I’ve noticed is that it tries to write email content for me. It’s very irritating. It starts throwing out the next three or four words it thinks I want to say. It’s worse than the words my iPhone thinks I want to say next when I’m texting.

The good things about AI

I would be remiss if I didn’t include the other side of the debate. The most promising thing about AI is the ability it will give researchers and medical professionals the ability to access information instantaneously that will potentially lead to new drugs and cures. Of course, how they will keep (or already are keeping) the hackers out of that process remains to be seen.

We all know there are unscrupulous people jumping on the bandwagon to perpetrate harm in other areas of our lives. The MOVEit and Windstream data breaches this summer are proof of that.

AI and the future of writing

Artificial Intelligence writing doctoral theses. Artificial Intelligence writing textbooks. Artificial Intelligence writing term papers. Artificial Intelligence writing essays for university applicants. Artificial Intelligence writing a novel.

Where will it end?

Worse than that, though

These are uncertain times and we haven’t even seen the tip of the iceberg. Just wait until the 2024 US Presidential Election campaign ads are running 24/7 on your TV and you will not be able to tell truth from fiction. You will see and hear candidates for political office doing and saying things they didn’t do and never said. It will all be smoke and mirrors and our very democracy will be at stake. That’s much more serious and dangerous than AI writing novels. It is our democracy being overcome by AI that should have every American’s attention.

Until my next blog post

I hope you’re reading a book that’s so good you didn’t want to put it down to read my blog post! But you did – so thank you! That book, no doubt, was written by a real human being who worked many years to learn and hone their craft so you could hold that book in your hand and be transported to another place and time.

Enjoy your friends and family, even if they don’t agree with you when it comes to politics.

Remember the people of Ukraine and the people on the island of Maui in Hawaii.

Janet