It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) post! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. In my post today, I answer the optional question of the month and I have details on the new deadline for entering the book and gift card giveaway that celebrates "The Fool's Illusion"'s 10th Anniversary!  

Generative AI

Question of the Month: The topic of AI writing has been heavily debated across the world. According to various sources, generative AI will assist writers, not replace them. What are your thoughts? Like other types of computer technology I've been fascinated with AI ever since I heard about it when I was a kid. As far as generative AI in particular goes, I think it's fascinating that humans can make a computer program that can respond on its own in a way very close to that of humans in written language. 

But I was shocked to hear, back in December of last year, that generative AI can write full stories on its own. A month or two after that, I wrote a post here at the Far Out Fantastic Site about the dangers of AI writer and artist software. Those dangers range from the annihilation of human authors and artists' careers to the very severance of connection between human storyteller and their audience. 

In that post, I offered some solutions to the problem: band together, demand creators' rights and avoid work produced by AI; or focus on buying each other's creations because there would be a time when mainstream publishers may no longer want to pay for human-written work. Fortunately, it may not have to go as far as this latter one because the Authors' Guild has been winning stages of the campaign against generative AI's takeover of human creators’ jobs. 

Like, almost all technology, generative AI does have its uses for certain things and so, I think it can be used to assist us writers in our work. But we writers have to minimise our use of it. (I, personally, don’t plan on using it at all for my writing, with maybe the exception of SEO because that can be tedious for a creative writer.) It is far too easy to give our jobs over to AI in order to meet a deadline or simply because there may be days we don’t want to write. 

We have to remember that storytelling and art are human acts. They are what make us different from all other intelligent life (at least on this world). When we as humans write, we are having a conversation with our fellow human beings who read our stories. We are sharing in words the experience of life common between writer and reader. There's a connection of awareness between these two that does not exist between robot and reader and probably, in my belief, never will. 

'Fool's Illusion' 10th Anniversary Giveaway 

If you haven't been here for the last couple of weeks, "The Fool's Illusion" 10th Anniversary Giveaway started on September 18th and was supposed to run until this past Saturday. However, it totally lacked entrants and so I’ve extended the deadline to enter. So, if you want a free copy of my book of short stories that this anniversary is for, check out my post for this past Monday to find out how to enter for a chance to win! Or you can go straight to the form itself . However, if you go to Monday's post you'll get a chance to take a look at the Book-To-Movie review for September (even though it was posted during this month of October)! Whatever you do though, do not enter the giveaway using the form on the anniversary post from September 18th since that form is now expired. I had to add a new one for the extension. The deadline now is October 8th. That’s this Sunday and, so, if you want a chance to receive a free book and a free gift card to Half Price Books, don't procrastinate!

What are your thoughts on generative AI for writers and artists? Today’s IWSG is brought to you by these super co-hosts: Natalie Aguirre, Kim Lajevardi, Debs Carey, Gwen Gardner, Patricia Josephine, and Rebecca Douglass! IWSG was founded by awesome author Alex Cavanaugh, writer of the Cassa Series of novels! 

Until next time . . .