Kathryn Holeton is a multi-talented creative with a knack for poetry and lyrics. She is a Brand Designer for Creatives, has collaborated on several musical projects, and is the author of "You're a Deity: An Inspirational Poetry Collection."
I used to think that being a writer would be an easy job. I was good at words and I had plenty of ideas, but that was before I started writing. I realized that I didn’t have a nice style or a cohesive voice in my writing. Everything I wrote was complete and total garbage. So of course, I threw myself into crafting my voice and style. I even went to college and majored in Professional and Technical Communication, a.k.a English.
After I graduated, I thought it would be easy to get hired at a company as a writer or editor. After I was ghosted by +400 companies though, I began thinking otherwise. At first, I thought that my resumé wasn’t up to par, or that I didn’t have enough experience, or that I was too persistent in following up. But it wasn’t that I wasn’t good enough or didn’t have enough experience, it was that a lot of companies hired through third parties, go figure.
While I was applying for my dream writing jobs, I started working on my social media presence to get experience. I created my website, got my writing published in multiple literary magazines, published a book, and helped other people get better at writing. I even branched out into creating brand identities to add some skills to my resume and to help other people stuck in a similar predicament. Then my brand design side gig started taking off, which was exciting.
I was beyond ecstatic that it was taking off and that I didn’t have to continue applying for jobs, that my dreams of being a writer and a creator were coming true. Then came this beautiful thing called AI, that could do everything I could in no time, and that allowed other people to knowingly or unknowingly steal other peoples’ work at the drop of a hat. Talk about messed up, right?
I used to think that being a writer would be an easy job. I think I can say this for all us writers out there, we’re in trouble.
Competing with AI for a job
When Chat GPT hit the scene in 2022, many writers started panicking. Chat GPT has the capability to replace writers in all industries because of how fast it can spit out information. It’s like an automatic candy machine. You put one quarter in and get out an entire box of chocolates.
Don’t get me wrong, AI makes a creator’s life easier. Idea generation and social media content creation is so easy with AI, it saves me so much time. I even use AI to learn how to write different things, like product descriptions and meta descriptions for my website. But all the saved time and advantages come with a dangerous cost.
Raphael Bob-Waksberg, the creator and showrunner for BoJack Horseman shared his opinion on the matter in an article written by Molly Kinder
“If you were to take a technology like this and say, ‘We’re going to give this to artists and make their lives easier and make their artistic power even greater,’ I would say, ‘Oh, that’s really interesting.’ But I don’t trust the companies to do that. When you look at the larger applications of these technologies, companies and studios never want to use it to empower artists to make cooler stuff for the same amount of money. They want to make things cheaper, cut the artists out, pay people less, and use these technologies in a way that doesn’t make the work better.”
Nailing a job in the creative industries was already competitive and challenging, but now the very idea of a “writing job” is at risk of disappearing from corporate settings. Why should big companies pay writers for their grants, scripts, social media content, advertisements, and websites when they can just type a prompt into AI and use the result it provides?
The Hollywood strike
Let’s look at the Hollywood strike that occurred in 2023. There were big discussions in studios and between film production companies on integrating AI into the writing and production process of movies and shows. Luckily, the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) was in the process of negotiating for better benefits for writers with The Alliance of Studios (AMPTP) in Hollywood when OpenAI hit the scene.
Negotiations, unfortunately, failed between the 2 organizations regarding AI usage, which is what caused the strike that followed. Writers across Hollywood went on strike for 148 days, which only ended because big film production companies such as Disney and Discovery were experiencing financial stress from not having writers for their programs. WGA and film production companies were able to negotiate a 3-year contract that, “ regulates [AI’s] use in ways that could benefit writers and studios and reduce harms.” Molly Kinder
This was a strategic, tentative, win for writers in Hollywood because it was the first contract that guaranteed that writers’ jobs would not be replaced with AI. But how does this affect writers in other industries? Just from what I’ve seen, many writers outside of Hollywood are left to struggle for a job. Solopreneurs are even losing clients because people and companies would rather cut their costs and use AI for any writing, whether it be copywriting or even books.
Not only do writers have to struggle for employment in companies, but they also must worry about their work being stolen by regular people and companies that use AI for daily tasks.
AI plagiarism
“When an artist – whether they are a painter, writer, photographer, poet, etc. – creates a piece of work, they automatically own the copyright to it. This means they get to choose how that work of art can be used and, of course, get paid for it.” – Bernard Marr
The first thing any student learns in school is that there are consequences for stealing other people’s work. In my high school, if you were caught plagiarizing, you could be suspended or, worse, expelled. It was even more terrifying when I went to college. If you were caught plagiarizing in college, the minimum penalty was expulsion, and the maximum was expulsion and academic suspension, where the college prevents a student from taking classes, earning credits, and even getting financial aid.
AI workings
When someone uses AI to generate a piece of content, the program scrapes, or sifts through, all the content on the internet, then uses that information to generate an answer to the prompt. It doesn’t discriminate between what information it takes, it uses all the available information out there and either meshes pieces of content together or copies verbatim from someone else’s work. Often, the person AI took that information from won’t know that it’s happened until they see it used somewhere else.
Your right to the money?
So how does a writer get paid, or even get credit, for their work that’s being used without their permission? Unfortunately, because AI is so new, there’s only one way that an artist can claim their work, which is to, “ go before the courts, as individual artists as well as corporations, and challenge the right of AI service providers to use their works without permission.” Bernard Marr
This situation is less than ideal for two reasons. One, if you’re a writer just starting out, you’re not going to have the money to sue a big company for illegally using your work. Two, even if you do have the funds to sue, you’ll need to have undeniable proof that your work was stolen by that company. At the time I’m writing this, many big-name artists are in the process of suing, but it’s hard to say how their lawsuits will go. I think the overreaching problem is that current copyright protection isn’t adequate against AI.
That being said, strides have been made in securing creative protection for writers and other creatives. Guilds like the European Guild for Artificial Intelligence Regulations have formed to combat the use of creative work without permission. While this guild is only in Europe now, it shows that writers and creators alike are finding ways to protect their work until copyright laws catch up in the stream of things.
There’s still not much a writer can do to get compensation for their work being used in AI without permission. Unfortunately, the only thing that can be done is to keep creating and putting yourself out there, because you still need to bring home the bacon. Even if it means you must use the very thing that could steal your work.
If you don’t use, you lose
AI is often seen as the root of all evil in the writing and creative world, but for all the harm it does, it has some benefits. AI can speed up the creative process 10-fold through its fast information generation. It’s like writing or drawing according to a prompt in a prompt book. I’ve personally used it to learn new ways of writing and for idea generation.
To keep up with the fast-changing scene AI has created, writers and artists alike shouldn’t be afraid of using AI in their creative process. “AI algorithms, can analyze extensive datasets, discern connections, and fabricate novel combinations that might have otherwise escaped human consideration.” – James Hutson in other words, AI can speed up idea generation, help you learn new things, analyze data sets, and help you create consistency in your writing process in a quarter of the time.
Speeding up the creative process creates a sustainable element in a writer’s process. Having the ability to constantly churn out writing every week, day, and hour, with a human touch is what keeps writers relevant in the age of AI. And as the famous saying goes, “if you don’t use it, you lose it.” In this case, if you don’t use AI to keep up with the demand, then you will fall behind and become irrelevant.
I’m not saying to just copy and paste all the information that AI gives you. That would make you no different from the companies and individuals that are already doing that, and it would damage your reputation as a writer. What I am saying is that if you use it to teach yourself new things, look for rewrite suggestions, and generate ideas for social media content and other pieces of writing, you can compete with AI-generated material.
Important
The important thing to remember is that “AI falls short in emulating the distinctive human essence and contextual nuances that lie at the heart of imaginative creativity.” – James Hutson At the end of the day, AI can only replace so much of humanity, currently anyway. Creativity is distinctively a human thing. That’s where the colors of emotions and nuances of styling still reside.
No one likes to deal with a robot or read something written by a robot. This one fact will set your writing apart from AI-generated content and from other writers. If you can create written content as fast as a robot and still make it sound human, then you have one thing up on other writers and most importantly, on AI.
In closing
For all the writers out there, I still think that we’re in trouble. AI may have some benefits that can help our writing process, but at the end of the day, companies are quickly integrating it into their systems and replacing the need for human writers. Earning an income from writing was already challenging, but with the appearance of AI, it has become even more challenging.
With the threat of having your work stolen at any time from anyone, AI has made a creative society and community fearful of others and of each other. But it has also made the creative communities come closer, like in the final scenes of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. This age of AI is terrifying but also comforting, if only by knowing that change is a constant.
As writers and creatives, we should continue doing what we are best at, which is creating. If we keep learning, and use any new tool that comes out, we still stand a chance against being replaced. Eventually, these AI service providers will have no choice but to place stricter regulations on their programs.
They will have no choice but to give credit and compensation where both are due. But until that happens, there will be many more lawsuits against them. There will be jobs that are replaced by AI. In this copyright war, neither side will win without any metaphorical bloodshed.
Read more from Kathryn Holeton
Kathryn Holeton, Brand Designer for Creatives
Kathryn Holeton is a multi-talented creative with a knack for poetry and lyrics. She is a Brand Designer for Creatives, has collaborated on several musical projects, and is the author of "You're a Deity: An Inspirational Poetry Collection."
