This blog post was written by a human.

I never thought to say that before—never thought I needed to—but, as Bob Dylan once sang, the times they are a-changin’.

I’ve been concerned for a while now about the use—and misuse—of artificial intelligence (AI). Especially when it comes to writing.

As a writer, editor, and occasional judge of students’ writing competitions, I’m especially concerned with AI replacing the work of human hands. Not just because it raises the issue of plagiarism to a new level, but also because it’s another way for us to avoid using our own brains, since—as an old cautionary-tale song once warned—“some machine’s doing that for you.”

Although I know AI is a powerful tool that has multiple uses in many industries, I’ve always been against the use of it by writers, and have stayed far away from it in my own writing. Or so I thought.

At a recent Georgia Writers Museum Writers Retreat, one of the keynote speakers did a presentation on the topic of “AI and Writing.” He started by asking the audience how many of them were using AI in their writing. Some hands went up, but mine wasn’t one of them. It turned out, however, this was a “Gotcha” question. “Unless you’re living in a cave,” he said, “you’re already using AI.”

As he continued his presentation, I realized that whenever I use Google to find or verify information, or click on “Synonyms” to look for a better word than the one I’ve written, I’m using AI. Other writers in the audience talked about how AI helped them with research, outlines, and other writing-related tasks, though not the writing itself.

I’m still not totally convinced, but I’m reluctantly, gradually, and cautiously being won over. And even though I still worry about the many ways AI can be misused and abused, I acknowledge that there are ways it can be useful to writers without crossing the line between writing  something yourself and “some machine doing that for you.”

So I’ll continue to be the actual and sole author of my blog posts and any other writing I do. But I’ll admit that I occasionally use Google to find or verify information, and click on “Synonyms” to look for a better word than the one I’ve written.

I hope you’ll forgive me for that. After all, I’m only human.

March 9, 2025
©Betty Liedtke, 2025

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