Wednesday, January 28, 2026
Ask for Promo Codes
Fellow writers and readers! I would love to have you listen to these. No review necessary though I am interested in what you think. They are narrated by a variety of people, some better than others of course. Best way is to email me and tell me which one(s) I can send. I will also exchange (I download and listen to yours). Thanks!
Tuesday, January 13, 2026
Luddite fringe activists
Writers are understandably upset about AI. AI can make a biography; all you have to do is ask it. AI is making children's books and literally flooding the market. AI is correcting everyone's grammar to the point that not using AI can be proven by a typo. This means that I encourage typos as a way of asserting you have written it yourself.
The problem is, "AI detection" programs are notoriously unreliable. What can you do if your work is 100% original but some program says it's 88% AI, or, 88% likely to be AI? Nothing. What I do is, try to avoid having my work run through the program in the first place. Lay low. Don't let anyone even ask the question.
One thing I will do is state unequivocally in the front cover of every book, This book was written by a real person...it is too late to do this with the thirty or so books I already have on the market. I could go back, sure, and slip it in there on the first page and then republish. But I don't want to do that, maybe because I'm too lazy, or because I feel like I shouldn't have to.
So the Luddite fringe activists are making lists of people who "use" AI for anything. Here's the thing. You can use it to write, use it to check your grammar, or use it to do the art on the cover. You can use it just to ask its advice on how you organized it. But it's a slippery slope. I can look up a word on google and it will give me a definition just because google stores definitions. But often it gives me an AI-driven explanation. Now some of my education and the preparation I have used for my book comes from AI, right? If I am to treat AI like a pariah, not touch it with even the side of my eye, then I have to pretty much get off the computer as I write and not look anything up at all. Or if I look it up, look it up only in the library. No AI! I don't want to admit that any use of the computer brain was involved in any part of my book.
With my art, full disclosure here, I've been using LunaPic, and I have no idea whether it qualifies as AI. It's been around since long before all this hoo-hah, but it's pretty clever, so sometimes I suspect that it has decided what makes a photo more impressionist and it just makes these changes because it's smart. Uh oh, should I admit that I use AI? I don't even know if I'm using AI. I'm using something.
My conclusion: Make a statement something like the following: This book was written entirely by a human. Tools were used in its construction that may or may not qualify as AI. Let them sort it out.
The problem is, "AI detection" programs are notoriously unreliable. What can you do if your work is 100% original but some program says it's 88% AI, or, 88% likely to be AI? Nothing. What I do is, try to avoid having my work run through the program in the first place. Lay low. Don't let anyone even ask the question.
One thing I will do is state unequivocally in the front cover of every book, This book was written by a real person...it is too late to do this with the thirty or so books I already have on the market. I could go back, sure, and slip it in there on the first page and then republish. But I don't want to do that, maybe because I'm too lazy, or because I feel like I shouldn't have to.
So the Luddite fringe activists are making lists of people who "use" AI for anything. Here's the thing. You can use it to write, use it to check your grammar, or use it to do the art on the cover. You can use it just to ask its advice on how you organized it. But it's a slippery slope. I can look up a word on google and it will give me a definition just because google stores definitions. But often it gives me an AI-driven explanation. Now some of my education and the preparation I have used for my book comes from AI, right? If I am to treat AI like a pariah, not touch it with even the side of my eye, then I have to pretty much get off the computer as I write and not look anything up at all. Or if I look it up, look it up only in the library. No AI! I don't want to admit that any use of the computer brain was involved in any part of my book.
With my art, full disclosure here, I've been using LunaPic, and I have no idea whether it qualifies as AI. It's been around since long before all this hoo-hah, but it's pretty clever, so sometimes I suspect that it has decided what makes a photo more impressionist and it just makes these changes because it's smart. Uh oh, should I admit that I use AI? I don't even know if I'm using AI. I'm using something.
My conclusion: Make a statement something like the following: This book was written entirely by a human. Tools were used in its construction that may or may not qualify as AI. Let them sort it out.
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