I recently wrote a short story. And I hired a beta reader, and then a copy editor. It should be noted – that all took money (more on that later).
I was very excited about this short story. The final draft had turned out well. It felt like the past ten years of practice on improving my writing had really paid off in that piece. And I thought maybe, just maybe, I could publish it in a sci‑fi/fantasy online magazine like Clarkesworld (okay, a pipe dream, but a girl can hope).
I looked up lists of the top 10 most prominent short story mags on the internet and went to submit my new piece to one, and was shocked to see their Anti-AI statements.
At Clarkesworld and Asimov’s (and others), they have this posted on their submission guidelines page:
- “Statement on the Use of ‘AI’ writing tools such as ChatGPT
We will not consider any submissions translated, written, developed, or assisted by these tools. Attempting to submit these works may result in being banned from submitting works in the future.”
That stance seems extreme.
A writer can’t even use AI to spell check and copy edit? That seems illogical given that MS Word and Google docs both have had AI‑driven grammar, spelling, and sentence‑construction help for nearly 10 years. So that was okay before, but now it’s not? Are they going to start rejecting any paper that used the MS Word spell/grammar checker too?
I understand that one shouldn’t generate their story with AI. And, AI generated stories are complete and utter dribble. And I have the means to hire a professional copy editor, so it’s okay for me.
Yay me.
But, not everyone has the means to do that.
Here are my issues with such an extreme stance:
Issue #1: Language Colonialism.
First off, they are essentially banning every single second‑language speaker in the world. So IF English was your first language, then lucky you; everyone else be damned. If you’re not a perfect English speaker and/or cannot afford a translator and copy editor, then forget writing a piece for any English magazine out there. Like, ever.
Note: It’s a type of modern‑day colonialism.
Issue #2: Special Needs and Accommodations
Both my daughters are special needs. And they use AI to help them. My oldest daughter is very interested in writing and wrote a story of her own. It was her own story and ideas. But she has a neurological disorder and struggles with grammar, spelling, and syntax. So she used AI to help make her ideas and story more well‑written. The beauty of technological innovations is that they’ve changed the lives of people with special needs (or anyone needing accommodations ) in wonderful ways; ways these magazines are rejecting?
Note: These magazines basically refuse ever to publish anything from someone who is special needs and required technology support. Not cool.
Issue #3: Economic or Social Disadvantage
Copy editors are expensive. They are also necessary. One cannot even for one second consider getting published unless they’ve used a copy editor (or are one themselves). I certainly am not. I grew up in rural USA. I went to a less‑than‑stellar (at least at the time) public school that didn’t help my general inability to understand grammar and spelling. I am a creator. An inventor. A designer. A thinker. I create new worlds and stories. That is what I love. That is what I am good at. I’m not good at copy editing.
Being a copy editor is a time‑honored and respected career and an essential part of writing. But they are also expensive, and for new writers who are paying for everything out of pocket (or for economically disadvantaged writers), that can be hard to afford. Using an AI agent like Microsoft’s Copilot to do the copy edit is a massive benefit to the masses who couldn’t afford professional copy editors.
Note: Denying the use of AI, even just to copy edit, denies anyone from a lower economic or disadvantaged background or developing nation the opportunity to break into the writing field. Aslo, uncool.
Issue #4: Unreasonable Fears of New Innovations
Name a new tool or innovation, and there will always be a group of people convinced it will ruin this or destroy that—or even become the downfall of all knowledge and skill. Graphing calculators are a good example: once feared as the harbinger of the death of mathematics. That didn’t happen.
Fear of new bombs? Yeah. Okay. We should probably shake in our shoes about that. Fear of new editing tools? Not so much.
AI editing of writing has been around for decades.
Yes. Decades!
The grammar and spell checker in MS Word? Remember Clippy, that little “helper” in MS Word back in the ’90s?
All AI.
Yup.
All.
Note: So are they going to ban the MS Word spell/grammar/sentence checker next too, which is also AI driven? Where do we draw the line?
Issue #5: Fear of Work Being Stolen by AI
The premise that AI is “stealing” work and spitting it back out for others isn’t my understanding of what the tool is actually doing. AI reads and consumes content in order to learn how to create similar content. For example, it may read and evaluate a large number of romance novels to learn the general style, structure, common plot points, and other conventions of that genre. It then uses that knowledge to help a new writer learn and apply those same craft techniques. It doesn’t steal the work and reproduce it; it uses it to learn the craft.
Just like all of us writers do.
As an example, I am currently writing a story based on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. I am pulling strongly from her novel and blending it with themes from Beauty and the Beast, all set in a fantasy world with werewolves and vampires. To do this, I have read Jane Austen extensively, studied the Regency era, and researched traditional Beauty and the Beast stories. I’m reading those older books and publications specifically to learn how to write in the style of Jane Austen and classic fairy tales. I am drawing on her language patterns, story structures, and plot elements to inform my own work.
And everyone is completely fine with me doing that.
In fact, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was a huge success and did exactly this, and no one took issue with it. But when AI does the same thing, suddenly it’s a problem?
When I took an art class, you know what the art teacher told me to do? I was told to find a famous painter I liked, and then try to COPY one of his pieces of art, so that I could LEARN the craft, techniques, and style. We use this same practice in all kinds of creative fields.
I think a new perspective is needed here.
What I cover in this post all centers on one major idea: those with means and the luck of resources oppressing those who don’t have those things to begin with.
I understand that some people see moral and ethical dilemmas in the fact that AI was fed their work without their consent so it could learn through ‘machine learning’. And, authors won a recent lawsuit from Anthropic on this matter. There are valid arguments there about what is ‘creative theft’ , though they seem thin given nobody seems to mind borrowing heavily from Jane Austen and older art or creative works simply because the work is over 100 years old.
Go figure.
And, recently the author of Shy Girl, Mia Ballard, got her publishing deal pulled when the company realized AI was used to write it. So we are seeing new lawsuits on the matter that will drive the future of publishing for all authors.
I also understand the argument that a human should write their own work, or else they cannot with any self-respect say they wrote it. And while this will change, right now, AI written work is full of bad phrases, off-topic metaphors, clichés and drivel without a voice or a personal author-style; hence how the publishing industry knew that Shy Girl was AI written.
But for copy editing? We ALREADY use AI for that, and have for decades.
Instead of hiring a copy editor for $$$ one could use AI to copy edit for free, in less than a minute, and then use the $$$ on a beta reader who helps the author with story flow, characterization, plot gaps, and deeper narrative issues that AI simply won’t (can’t) catch. That feels like the smartest possible use of both time and money.
And beyond those debates, there are deeper issues of oppression, which is what I truly want to focus on here.
I have lived in three countries and traveled to thirty others. I have seen the struggles of those from countries with fewer resources as they try to keep pace with those in countries with more opportunities and resources and means. And I have raised special needs children who need technology accommodations to help them (So this topic is dear and close to my heart). I have seen second-language learners who use the same tools to aid them in school. And, I have seen writers in other countries trying to break into new markets.
AI can help them all.
Yup. I’m taking a very strong opinion here. And I stand by it. Rejecting all AI usage, even just for editing, is about oppression.
Not cool.
Note: Blog post image created with Midjourney – an evil, oh so very evil, and awfully diabolical and maniacally twisted AI image generator bot. Or, so some might say…