u/Shantanusingh8202

I think a lot of writers and artists who dislike AI are not only concerned about ethics. Some of it comes from insecurity too.

The more I use AI, the more obvious it becomes that it cannot truly replace great writing or art. It can copy patterns and create endless variations, but it does not have real experiences, personal taste, beliefs, or a unique perspective.

What AI really threatens is average work. Before AI, mediocre work could still hide behind effort, credentials, or limited supply. Now average content can be produced endlessly and cheaply.

That creates plenty of real problems, but it also raises an uncomfortable question: if AI can completely replace your creative identity, maybe the problem was deeper than the technology itself.

Hi everyone,

A while ago, I decided to run an experiment. I self published a completely AI generated novel and made the AI use very obvious, with a watermark on the cover and a clear disclaimer on the first page.

The main question was simple: does openly disclosing AI use actually hurt a book?

Going in, I expected the answer to be yes. Readers already have certain expectations about AI content, and once they know AI was involved, they may judge the work differently before even reading it.

That is pretty much what happened.

People who are against AI still criticized it, while people who were fine with AI usually just moved on without saying anything. So the feedback became much more negative than I expected, even though that does not necessarily mean most readers hated it.

There is also research pointing in the same direction. One study involving 27,000+ participants found that disclosing AI involvement in creative writing lowered evaluations by around 6%.

What I find more interesting is how little nuance there seems to be around AI disclosure.

Someone using AI to brainstorm an idea, someone using it to edit a few sentences, and someone generating an entire novel can all end up being treated as basically the same thing.

That seems like a problem.

I still think AI use should be disclosed when it is significant. But I also think the labels need to become more specific so readers actually understand how AI was used.

Right now, simply seeing an "AI generated" label can make people assume the entire creative process was automated.

What do you think? Should AI use in writing always be disclosed, or should the level of AI involvement matter?

Sometimes I start with one idea and discover halfway through that another point is much stronger

Has AI ever helped you notice that shift before you finished the draft?

I have tried short descriptions and extremely detailed character profiles

The detailed ones seem better at the beginning but sometimes make the responses feel too rigid

A shorter personality prompt might actually work better

What has worked for you?

I started asking the model to describe what it thinks I am trying to achieve before doing the task

If it misunderstands the goal, I can correct it immediately

It has reduced a lot of unnecessary back and forth for me

That sounds positive at first

But I think it creates a strange problem

When decent writing takes almost no effort, the difference between decent and genuinely good becomes much more important

There is less value in simply producing something readable

Original thinking, strong examples, and a distinct voice matter much more now

AI lowered the floor for writing, but it may have raised the bar for standing out

Sometimes I do not know exactly what I want to write yet

I just throw the rough thought into a chat and let the model ask questions or suggest directions

Does anyone else use AI more for exploring ideas than actually writing them?

Sometimes the answer is correct but still feels like too much to process

I usually ask for the same explanation in half the words

Does anyone else do this regularly?

The more natural the output becomes, the easier it is to stop paying attention to how the ideas were formed

A smooth paragraph can hide weak reasoning

A confident explanation can hide missing evidence

Good writing is useful, but it should not become a substitute for checking whether the argument actually makes sense

That distinction feels more important as AI improves

Sometimes seeing my idea explained by AI makes me notice gaps that were invisible while writing it

Do you use AI this way, or mostly for editing and rewriting?

Sometimes a polished draft feels too generic, so I ask for a rougher version first and then edit it myself

Has anyone found this approach useful for keeping their own voice?

Sometimes polished writing feels less natural than something simple and direct. Do you deliberately ask AI to make the wording more casual, or do you prefer keeping the polished version?

Not just improving the draft, but making you rethink the entire process from planning to editing. Did that happen naturally over time, or after discovering one specific workflow?

The idea was clear in my head, but I could not explain it properly. AI somehow connected the pieces. Has that happened to you?

A few conversations have ended with a completely different solution than I expected because the original problem was not actually the biggest issue. Has that ever happened to you?

I kept changing the wording when the real problem was the structure. Has AI ever helped you spot a completely different issue than the one you were trying to fix?

The paragraph felt important while I was writing it, but AI pointed out that it interrupted the flow. Has feedback from AI ever made you delete something you really wanted to keep?

Whenever I begin a new project, I ask one thing first.

"What questions should I answer before starting?"

That one habit has made planning much easier than jumping straight into writing.

Sometimes all it takes is one fresh perspective to get moving again. Has AI ever helped you finally complete a project you kept putting off?

Instead of asking for a different answer, I ask the model to explain exactly why it disagrees with my approach.

The conversations become much more interesting because they focus on reasoning instead of conclusions.

Has anyone else tried this?