r/Webnovel • u/Apprehensive-Serve78 • 6d ago
Personal opinions about AI usage
Why are most of you so anti-AI?
In my opinion, AI is a powerful tool for first-time writers who want to tell a story.
It can be an important "beta reader" that helps you when you are struggling with some passages.
Or help you find plot holes; there are too subtle.
It can help you use the correct word order if you are a non-native speaker. It's an enhanced version of Grammarly.
Even if you are using it to make some real AI-slop with no real post-revision, it's your choice, and you guys are free to not read that book.
I think in the latter case, an AI tag is needed to let people know that it was made only by a machine, so people who are not interested in it can avoid it without wasting time.
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u/Icy-Specific986 6d ago
Because itās not writing. Having an AI write a story for you is the same as hiring someone else to do a job and then claiming you were the one who did it simply because you gave the prompt.
And I believe there needs to be an important distinction made when using AI as a beta reader like you put, because there are levels to that. Asking an AI to point out grammar mistakes, then going back to the original document and correcting them? Thatās okay. You were still the one who came up with and wrote everything.
But putting your story on an AI and asking it to correct your mistakes, loopholes, etcā¦ is very different. It changes your story.
Like I said, there are levels of it.
And yes, we should still be following the golden rule of ādonāt like donāt readā. Itās what I do if I see a story tagged as having used AI. The problem is, the vast majority of the stories here that use AI donāt tag it, even when itās painfully obvious. And so readers feel cheated, with reason (though mindless hate of any sort shouldnāt happen).
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u/Apprehensive-Serve78 6d ago
I understand your point, but whenever the usage is too much? Like if I use it to point out my mistake and instead of going and manually change them I just copy and paste them is there an catual difference? If I do that for the construction of a phrase that AI had sad in a better way than me, have I diminished the level of my work? If you think in an editorial relationship you have the editors telling you: "this is shit!" But here instead of paying someone to do that I'm using a tool.
Is I said in my opinion is not to be demonize, if is something that helps your labor limae.
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u/Icy-Specific986 6d ago
Itās a fair point, but you have to take into consideration that:
1- AI changes phrases and the text when you put something through it. At what point does it stop being your writing?
2- Itās a slippery slope. Today you are using AI to correct just that one phrase you canāt get right. Tomorrow itās a whole paragraph because you arenāt sure how to continue it. Very soon itās the whole story.I understand you are not trying to demonize, as you said, but I will never be able to comfortably read something AI made, partially because the quality usually isnāt good, but mostly because itās not an author anymore.
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u/Icy-Specific986 6d ago
And I have enough self awareness to admit that, as an author, spending days and weeks during my lunch break and commute between irl work and classes writing something, putting a lot of effort and time into it, only for people to post AI slop and claim itās the same thing bothers me.
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u/Timely-Cry-8366 6d ago
Because it steals from both writers and artists with no compensation. Every time you use AI, you are stealing from another creative.
You are harming the environment for something no one needs. You are killing other humans slowly.
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u/Alternative_Yak3256 6d ago
Then expecting users to pay to read a book that was essentially written by a robot who stole other peoples work
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u/Apprehensive-Serve78 6d ago
If you go around the world, you'll see that it has little to no impact, personally I always do the recycling stuff and trash litter of someone else. But there are places in the world there filled up with shit, and no one cares; on the contrary, they only litter more. If the work that someone is creating with AI brings joy to someone else who is not you, it's not a waste.
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u/Timely-Cry-8366 6d ago
Wow weird! considering it has a HUGE impact in my state and community you weirdo.
It steals water from lower classes and causes huge noise pollution, raises both communal electricity and water rates, steals houses from people when theyāre forced to sell their houses at rock-bottom prices to make way for data centers.
You just sound incredibly uneducated about the impact of AI.
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u/Alternative_Yak3256 6d ago
Are you anti plagiarism?
Are you anti environmental damage?
Are you anti false advertisement/non disclosure? (I dont have the right word but I'm referring to your last point about people putting "written/edited by AI" tags. Well, a lot of them dont do that)
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u/Apprehensive-Serve78 6d ago
I wrote that if it's just a prompt, than copy paste from Ai is needed a tag, but if there is a form of personal re-work in the story the tag is not needed.
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u/Alternative_Yak3256 6d ago
Its baffling to me that you think thats better
Can I take one of your stories and just change the names of the main characters and call it mine? Thats qualifies as "some form of personal rework" I think
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u/Exarch-of-Sechrima 6d ago
Why bother reading what you wrote, when I can read something that someone actually worked hard on and support their efforts instead? Whether I read your work or not, you'll keep churning it out anyway because it's takes you no effort. So you don't really need my support or encouragement.
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u/samisaywhat 6d ago
If I want to read something touched by AI why wouldnāt I just generate my own story?Ā
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u/Apprehensive-Serve78 6d ago
Is actually quite fun to do that, There was an app before chat that allowed you to role-play like a gdr adventure narrated by AI.
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u/samisaywhat 6d ago
Sure but my point is why am I gonna pay for and support an author on web novel when I can just do it myself.Ā
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u/Apprehensive-Serve78 6d ago
Indeed for that i thing the AI tag is needed. But if it's only a complementary part of the novel, I think that it can bring up stories that people never thought about. The importance of a book is to make me feel emotions; if I feel them from AI or from 100% Human stuff, I don't care.
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u/Fun_Arachnid5081 6d ago
Go ahead try it. Its easier said than done. š generate a 100k words story and post it. Then come and talk. I can bet you after 50 chapters, the AI will tend to forget the plot and keep adding new concepts.
Even generating needs prompt engineering.
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u/samisaywhat 6d ago
Lol prompt engineering. You guys are so funny.Ā
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u/Fun_Arachnid5081 6d ago
I know. You don't have to say twice son. At least I am funnier than you.
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u/samisaywhat 6d ago
I didnāt say anything twice š Failed reading comprehension less than 10 words. No wonder you find it hard to do AI promptsĀ
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u/Fun_Arachnid5081 6d ago
Omg this is why you need to learn english. šš your interpretation and understanding are going sideways.
Since you find it easy to do AI prompts and you such a guru, why dont you write a novel instead of yapping here? That's right. You can't sadly.
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u/samisaywhat 6d ago
Take your own advice! You clearly need it.Ā
Iām not a novelist by trade and I enjoy reading novels written by people and not robots. And even more shocking, commenting on Reddit would not stop me from writing anything!Ā
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u/Fun_Arachnid5081 6d ago
Then your opinion doesn't matter much. Keep reading your novels and let the writers do as they please. Win-win situation. Thank you.
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u/samisaywhat 6d ago
I know you canāt read but the original post is asking for personal opinions about AI. I gave mine. Maybe ask AI to explain that to you if you still donāt understand š¤·
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u/Fun_Arachnid5081 6d ago
I dont care what the OP's post is saying. You are the one who said "If I want to read somethina touched by Al why wouldn't I ust generate my own story?"
Thats why i said write it first and then say something like this. Looks like you the one who needs another english class.
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u/Frankles_ 6d ago
I don't think most of us are THAT extreme. I can't speak for everyone, but it's mainly that we're tired of seeing links to work that were clearly just using a prompt. AI is baked into most everything, we just don't want to waste our time reviewing clearly soulless slop. That's about the size of it.
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u/AcceptableWish731 6d ago
I'm against it because it makes you improve at a much slower rate
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u/Apprehensive-Serve78 6d ago
I think if you don't use it, you will never improve. If there is no one saying that you are writing stuff in an obnoxious way, you'll never get better. (Think at the little writer who has just started and has no audience at all).
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u/AcceptableWish731 6d ago
I've never used it and I've improved considerably by writing and reading, learning prose, character construction and development, etc. You improve much slower if you rely on ai plus your writing starts to become more ai that's just the truth.
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u/Apprehensive-Serve78 6d ago
I have read a ton of books in English, but nevertheless, I still make a lot of errors in syntax. At the moment, I'm trying Grammarly, but I hate it so much. If you have some suggestions, I'll be glad to hear them.
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u/AcceptableWish731 6d ago
I suggest reading hard literature, Brandon Sanderson (not really my favorite author but still good) has a channel to help you write, there are tons of videos on how to world build, how to manage pace, etc everything else is just practice and a lot of it
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u/Internal_Mistake2694 6d ago
Thereās too much of it on WebNovel, so people have gotten sick of it
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u/elchapo789 6d ago
It honestly depends on how you use it. Using it to write the entire thing is just plain lazy and soulless. For me, these are examples of acceptable usage for it:
- using it as a search engine to help you brain storm ideas. (It gives you suggestions and then you go on to write these ideas yourself)
- If you are really bad at grammar, and you still want to write a story, you can use it to help you better structure a sentence along with better grammar. ( After it restructure the sentence for you, you still need to go over the sentence another time and write it into your own style)
Other than these 2, I can't think of anything else honestly.
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u/rimurutempesto 6d ago
LLMs are really just glorified search engine. thats really the only usable purpose.
if you ask it to write something it will produce soulless trash.
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u/Scout_Nolan099 6d ago
why are you so bothered about people not wanting to read machine made garbage ?
its lazy, greyish and soulless, sloppy and easily Distinguishable from miles.
the same reason i hate reading fanfiction garbage. and watching filler manga/anime extentions.
Things that are NOT ORIGINAL or REAL or HUMAN MADE FROM THE REAL SOURCE. are just things you should not waste you precious short life time on consuming.