OH, NO. STILL TALKING ABOUT AI

DH, one of the original techies (he designed both hardware and software when few knew what those “wares” were) mocks the big to-do about AI. He maintains it isn’t different from the digital tools we have been using for forty years, only more sophisticated and functional, but not fundamentally a new species of “ware.”

 

I tend to agree, and I’m no techie. Digital tools have been with us since the mid-20^th century, and in our homes since the late part of the same. They just keep getting more able and their functionality is replacing an increasing number of functions that once required living breathing individual beings to operate.

 

Digital tools are just that, TOOLS.

 

Cars replaced horses, typewriters replaced pencils. Spellcheckers replaced thumbing through printed dictionaries, and printed dictionaries were replaced with ones brought to light on screens.

 

Now AI tools also manage technical writing once done by hardworking humans with the job title “Tech Writer,” and genre fiction can be spewed in minutes by the same tools. Echoes of the assembly line workers being replaced by machines? You bet.

 

It is uncomfortable to be replaced. It is both exhilarating and uncomfortable to adjust to most changes.

 

It’s also pointless to whine or rail against it. Digital tools are here, and they keep getting better in the sense of becoming more precise.

 

But the point where we give up on meaning in our creative lives is nowhere here and never will be. I’m reminded of chapter 23 in The Little Prince, where he comes to a train station and someone is selling “water pills.” The salesperson promises it would save the buyer some minutes they would otherwise have to waste drinking water. The Little Prince is baffled, as he’d rather take the few minutes saved and go to the nearest brook or water well and take in the fresh drink of water.

 

If you want to churn a novel, AI is a (still mediocre) tool, but it will do, and it will keep getting better at it. If you want to grow through the journey of creating a novel with all the amazing insights and emotional experiences it will provide you, the creator, you will write it, every word of it, as it flows out of the fountain of your God-given creative stream.

THAT THING CALLED “AUTHOR PLATFORM”

 

plat·form

/ˈplatˌfôrm/

noun

1.      a raised level surface on which people or things can stand.

"there are viewing platforms where visitors may gape at the chasm"

 

2.      the declared policy of a political party or group.

"seeking election on a platform of low taxes"

 

Well, then.

 

Authors, it is said, need a platform. In authorly terms this means expertise that is already recognized as such by (preferably) a goodly number of people. It’s that thing that makes for a virtual “raised level” on which the author stands above the minions.

Turns out, it is less relevant (some say not relevant) for writers of fiction. It is essential for non-fiction, as a sort of Bona fide to be writing on a subject. In fiction, personal experience of the sort the plot conveys would serve the same function, and the platform in either case is an established public identity that attests to such and is known and followed by many.

 

I like this post because of its original title (later changed by Jane Friedman): “I’D RATHER BE WRITING.”

That, precisely.

 

I know a prolific and competent writer (of YA fiction) who had grown her blog to have thousands of followers and same for her Instagram account, who has all but abandoned both.

 

She’d rather be writing, and her platform never sold her books. Her books sold her books.

 

Adding: most good writers are not great marketers. This is what traditional publishers are supposed to be and do.

 

A writer should do what they can, and most of that consists of writing and writing better.

Signed,

Platformless Me