A Hot Topic: Artificial Intelligence

In my February 7th post, I mentioned that I’m taking a college course this spring semester called “Writing in the Age of AI.”

Unless you’ve been living under a rock—not to mention never using a computer or smart phone—you are aware that AI is next to impossible to avoid in 2025. There are the Large Language Models such a ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and CoPilot. There are grammar and spell checkers like Grammarly. There are writing apps like ProWritingAid and Autocrit. Apple introduce Apple Intelligence last fall, and it now summarizes my emails and texts on my iPhone as well as offers writing tools to improve my emails, notes, whatever.

There’s a lot of fear in regard to AI. In my world (the world of publishing), readers and writers are nervous about AI taking over. There’s anger from writers and publishers that the LLMs were trained on intellectual property without payment. There is fear of large scale plagiarism, and many wonder what jobs will be lost because of this new technology.

I get it. When I started writing, all covers in the romance mass market began with an artist painting the scene in oils. I even have two original oils used in my book covers that are hanging in my home (see photo above for one of them). But then personal computers got faster and smarter and suddenly cover art was being done digitally instead of with oil paintings. All those artists who’d been painting cover art for years had to either learn to create digital art or find another venue for their work. There will be changes once again because of AI. But as someone famous once said, the only constant in life is change.

I first began paying attention to AI about a year ago. And here is what I have learned. It benefits nothing to be afraid. What is needed is education and lots of it. AI isn’t going away. And like any technology there will be bad actors who misuse it. But don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. We must hope and pray that most will use it ethically. AI is a tool that can work well in many different toolboxes, but it is just a tool. It is not an answer in and of itself. There are both benefits and dangers.

I’ve learned a lot about AI over the past year, including where it succeeds and where it fails. I’ve learned a lot more in the weeks since my college class began. One thing I’ve learned is that we can’t let AI destroy critical thinking. We’ve got to continue using our old gray cells because we are the humans in the loop.

And humans are made in the image of God. Artificial intelligence can’t compete with that.

~robin