BoM/TWS Message Forum

I take you and other critics seriously. But instead of burdening you with a 1200-word essay in response, I'll just ask one question:

If you have a problem with imaj using AI because he can't find the right words, do you have a problem with him using a thesaurus when he can't find the right word? Because a thesaurus, like AI, also lacks the right kind of "interiority."

Imaj is using AI exactly the way he would use a thesaurus, as he has made clear: Show me some words and I'll decide if they are the right ones I want to use.

And before you say, "But that's just one word!" I would advise you not to look too closely at how many resources, and how thickly they are applied, writers have always used—outside the confines of their own skulls—in order to write. Not just thesauruses, but dictionaries (for stress markers when writing poetry), rhyming dictionaries, writing models, beta readers and workshoppers (who are FULL of advice on which words to use in preferene to the writer's own, and sometimes even other writers.

What they say about sausages and the law—if you like them, don't inquire too closely into how they are made—goes too for creativity. And frequently the difference between a good writer and a poor is that the latter has scruples whereas the former will cheerfully murder his way to a good draft.