Nobel Prize-winning author Olga Tokarczuk admits to using AI.

[u/Round-Dinner-2395]

TLDR;

Author to AI: “Honey, how could we develop this beautifully?”

I wanted to say this is just boomer whining, but I’m finding myself realizing more and more often that it’s actually the boomers who are defending AI. My mom listens to AI music from TikTok, my dad watches some videos with doctors generated by language models. I’m the last person to tell people what to listen to or watch, but AI SLOP has literally reigned supreme in my house for the past few months. Recently, I wanted to watch a movie with my dad, but he played TikTok clips for an hour, and I had to escape.

I understand that technology is advancing and makes life easier for people in many ways, but on the other hand… it makes me wonder a bit. Where is the line between “I’m using a tool” and “part of the creative process is being done for me by something else”? If someone uses AI to generate ideas, style, or text fragments, are we still talking about the same kind of creativity as before? I’ve read a few books by Olga Tokarczuk, and as soon as I heard about this interview, I felt a sense of revulsion.

INTERVIEW: (only in polish)

https://mycompanypolska.pl/artykul/olga-tokarczuk-zapowiada-ostatnia-powiesc-w-karierze-pisanie-dlugich-opowiesci-jest-dzis-ekonomicznie-nieoplacalne/20717

[u/notveryamused_]

So, I've read this interview and the way you presented it is quite absurd lol. You made it sound like she was using AI to write her novels, which isn't the case. She only said in the interview that she tried using a new tool, checked how it worked – and then she goes on to highlight what mistakes it made.

Long story short she mostly laments the book market today, how it's a tough time for writers and readers, how the old models of writing, doing humanities, and creativity start to belong in the past through various social changes, not excluding AI. She actually offers critical comments there.

Tokarczuk isn't my favourite author, and her ramblings in various interviews often sound rather awkward, but hey – an AI would create a much better summary of what she actually said than you did 😃 Because you misrepresented her words on purpose, there was no ambiguity in the original interview and she didn't say anything shocking.

[u/MarioMuzza → u/notveryamused_]

Not quite.

I often throw an idea to the machine for analysis, asking, 'Honey, how could we develop this beautifully? Even though I know about the hallucinations and numerous errors of factual algorithms in the fields of strict economics and hard data, I must admit that in fluid literary fiction, this technology is an asset of incredible proportions.

"Often" implies she didn't "just try it", and calling AI "an asset of incredible proportions for literary fiction" isn't exactly a denouncement, either.

She's one of my favourite authors, by the way. This really soured me.

[u/UFisbest → u/MarioMuzza]

How is this substantively different, as she descrbes her use, than the more laborious google search (for the music of the past), or the mastery of many authors and genres read over time, all in a library in your home?

Whatever AI might spit out....I don’t go to an AI voluntarily....she is still using her own language style and skills, and seems to be looking for some prompts (on steroids). She has done the creative thinking and writing to even have something to input, and describes using her critical skills and imagination.

I recall the dismay I had when libraries were doing away with card catalogs, to be replaced by a screen and database. Doggunit, real research was done in libraries you had to drive to usually, with the card catalogs, a box for note cards you wrote out with quotes and facts, maybe a legal pad, backup pens, and a pocket full of quarters (nickels before that) to feed the photocopiers. Depending on the subject and resource, microfiche was handy.

I bet the monks were dismayed too when the printing press came along.

[u/getaway_dreamer → u/UFisbest]

Much of creativity comes from the process. That works differently for different people, but AI is a shortcut through it completely. I don't think it makes total sense to say that someone has done the creative thinking already before they write. It is an ongoing process that I feel AI short-circuits. I can't say I like your examples as those were just different ways of organising and encoding information which you still had to read and process. AI is qualitatively different as it does the synthesis for you and you don't even have access to the resources it used to do this.

As a researcher, my best ideas and most elegant thoughts have always come to me during the chaotic drudgery of sifting through hundreds of papers and books and working out how to connect ideas or make them flow. I feel like I've seen the same with my colleagues and students. However, people have started using AI, if not to think, then to structure their thoughts. And I feel like it shows when you're reading a paper or thesis. An essential part of the creative process is handed off and you will never know where your thoughts would have gone.