The fight over AI use in writing is largely political. Established authors, I've observed, are generally against it. Writers at the beginning of their publishing journey are more likely to be in favor, or at least not opposed, to it. Where the rubber meets the road is what "generative" means in the final output. If a writer posts a prompt and uses verbatim what the LLM spits out, that's pretty cut and dry. But if the writer engineers a prompt with multiple constraints, many explicit to-dos, and heavily edits the output such that the final product is hardly recognizable from what the LLM spit out, what is that? No one knows, no one has defined it, and no one knows what to do about it if and when it happens. Virtually no one is prepared for when this scenario inevitably occurs.
I agree, and I think that many writers who use AI do it the second way you’ve described. Unfortunately, the community sees it as a black and white issue.
The fight over AI use in writing is largely political. Established authors, I've observed, are generally against it. Writers at the beginning of their publishing journey are more likely to be in favor, or at least not opposed, to it. Where the rubber meets the road is what "generative" means in the final output. If a writer posts a prompt and uses verbatim what the LLM spits out, that's pretty cut and dry. But if the writer engineers a prompt with multiple constraints, many explicit to-dos, and heavily edits the output such that the final product is hardly recognizable from what the LLM spit out, what is that? No one knows, no one has defined it, and no one knows what to do about it if and when it happens. Virtually no one is prepared for when this scenario inevitably occurs.
I agree, and I think that many writers who use AI do it the second way you’ve described. Unfortunately, the community sees it as a black and white issue.
Over time, I think attitudes will change. It will take some people taking risks, being transparent, and a lot of discussion.