Letting AI Into the Writing Room
Reflecting on how using artificial intelligence feels, and what it means for the words that feel like mine.
It is here now, isn't it? This capability, this artificial intelligence, weaving its way into the corners of our creative lives. And for those of us who put words out into the world, it brings up some curious feelings.
One that has been sitting with me is a quiet question, a whisper really: when I use AI to help me write, am I... well, is it a form of cheating?
There is a part of me, perhaps the part that loves the raw, messy process of writing, that feels a twinge of unease. Writing has always felt like a solitary journey, a wrestling match with thoughts and feelings and the blank page. Bringing in a machine to help, even one I direct, feels different. It challenges that romantic idea of the lone creator.
What Makes Words Feel Like Mine?
But then I stop and think about what makes any piece of writing feel truly mine. Is it simply the effort? The hours spent staring at the screen? Or is it something else?
I suspect it is something deeper. It is the unique perspective I bring, shaped by my specific history, my experiences as a psychologist, my particular way of seeing the world. It is the subtle emotional colour I infuse into the text, the empathy or quiet contemplation that comes from feeling things myself. It is the judgment call I make about which ideas matter, which connections are worth drawing, which words carry the right weight.
These things, I believe, are born from consciousness, from lived experience, from the very particular shape of a human mind and heart.
This is what AI does not have.
It can process information, recognise patterns, and generate text based on immense amounts of data, but it does not live, feel, or judge in the human way.
How I Have Been Using the Tool
So, how does this play out when I actually sit down to write? Sometimes, when the screen is blank and the thoughts are a fog, I might ask an AI to suggest a few angles on a topic. Or, if I am trying to explain a complex idea simply, I might ask it to rephrase a paragraph to see different ways the words could sit together. Occasionally, it helps clean up clunky sentences or checks for grammatical slips I have missed.
It feels less like the AI is writing for me, and more like it is a really efficient assistant, or perhaps a very literal-minded but helpful co-pilot.
It offers possibilities, clears small hurdles, and handles some of the tedious bits.
Still My Voice, Still My Thought?
The question remains: does using this tool diminish the final piece? Does it make it less authentically mine?
I think the answer lies in what I do with what the AI provides. If I were just copying and pasting its output, presenting it as my own raw thought, then perhaps that would feel like a kind of misrepresentation.
But that is not how it works, at least not for me.
I have to take what it offers and reshape it. I have to infuse it with my voice, my specific examples, my personal reflections. I have to apply my own judgment to decide if its suggestions actually make the writing better, if they align with what I genuinely mean to say and how I want to say it.
The AI gives me clay, perhaps, but I still have to sculpt it with my own hands, guided by my own vision.
A Note for the Path Ahead
Perhaps the feeling of "cheating" comes from focusing too much on the effort saved and not enough on the value added.
If using AI for some tasks allows me to spend more time on the deeper, more human work of reflecting, feeling, and connecting, then maybe it is not cheating. Maybe it is just... writing, now. Using the tools available.
My note to self is to keep paying attention to this feeling, this quiet question.
But also, to remember that the most valuable part of my writing is precisely what AI cannot replicate: the messy, complex, utterly unique landscape of my own human experience and perspective.
That, I suspect, will always be mine to bring to the page.
A lovely piece Sarb, echoes my thoughts and questions too.