Welp. I’m in a writing community, DabbleU, and one of the writers just saw this: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/federal-judge-rules-copyrighted-books-are-fair-use-ai-training-rcna214766
…
I honestly have no words for this.
And to be honest, after everything that has been going on, this…
I have absolutely no words for this.
There are truly no words in the world that can possibly describe what I’m feeling right now. The best I can come up with is rage. But something so much more than rage.
We writers put so much of ourselves into writing. Countless hours of blood, sweat, and tears. Sleepless nights wondering about our characters. Years of writing and perfecting our craft, letting our imagination run wild, even when it can be so torturous at times. And yet at the same time, for me, writing is what makes me me. It is where my imagination runs free. It is where I can explore all my deepest dreams and fears and terrifying hopes, without having to worry about judgement. It is where I can create my own world. A world of magic. It is where I can explore hope and put so much of my dreams into this one story. Stories are so so powerful and they have such a huge impact on the world. Stories are what inspire change. Stories are what have given me and so many other people in this world hope in a world that can feel so hopeless.
And to see something like this is…
I can’t describe it.
I’ve seen so many people in YouTube comments say that it doesn’t matter. That AI writing is good anyway and that nobody cares if it’s human or AI written so long as it’s good.
But to me, stories are so much more than “good writing” and “polished prose”.
To me, the stories that I have read and loved as a kid are the stories that have been shaped by the author’s own experiences. By their memories, their fears, and their hopes. It’s part of what makes books like When You Trap a Tiger or Front Desk so real and so important.
And to measure something like writing on outcome alone…
I’ll be upfront. I don’t know. I don’t know how to put all my thoughts about this into actual, coherent words. Yes, I’m a writer. But in times like these, even the words that I should know become absolutely lost to me.
Things like just outcome alone, perfect prose, imperfect prose, etc… none of that should erase all the work that went into this book. I once read a book that didn’t have as polished, perfect prose and maybe one could write lusher descriptions with AI. And yet I didn’t care. And yet that book still stayed with me for so long. It is one of the books that has truly inspired me.
Why? Because of the world that this teen author built from her own imagination. Because of the fact that this was another teen writer. A real person, who clearly put so much of herself into her work, and who didn’t give up when so many people might’ve. A person who started out writing when she was 11 years old, like me. And to just see someone like me doing this and not giving up and actually making it as an author and to just feel the magic and real-ness of the world she’s created… that is something that meant everything to me when I was writing the Enchantria series. (By the way, that author is Sophie Torro, and she’s a wonderful author, everyone should go read her books!!!) Just from reading her books and from reading her blog, I could see how much she really enjoyed writing. And all of that really comes through on the page.
Gail Carson Levine says it better than I do in her book, Writing Magic. “Readers care less about perfection and more about connection, getting caught up in the story, caring about the characters.”
That is really what happens to me when I read a book that truly stays with me. The book is never perfect. And yet it had that sort of real, emotional attachment that stayed with me more than a perfect book ever could.
Storytelling is such an important part of our world.
It has been around for billions of years, ever since the first humans.
It is something that has influenced so many people, including me. It is truly something that really shapes our world. Storytelling is what has given hope to so many people and it is what has made so many people feel seen and let them know that they matter.
If I had not read the stories that I obsessed over as a kid, I would never be the same person I am today.
That is something AI can never replicate, even if it may have “excellent prose” or “lush descriptions”. (Which, frankly, er… it doesn’t quite have a grasp on it. I’ve seen so many YouTubers experimenting with it, and from what I’ve seen, it reads well at first glance. But when you try to take a deeper look at it, to try and break apart the meaning of the words… you can’t. Because really, that’s all it is. Pretty prose. Pretty but meaningless.)
Stories and music and art and so many more things are how we express ourselves. They let out pour out all of our emotions and show ourselves to the world. Through stories and writing, I’ve discovered so much about myself as a person and also my identity as a writer and also as a person. I’ve always been torn between my cultural identity. Still am.
(For anyone confused, I am Chinese and Isabelle Knight is a pen name. I grew up in China, have only been the US once, but I was homeschooled and taught according to the US curriculum. English is my first language, and I hardly know anything about Chinese culture and/or history…..) And even now I do not have everything about me figured out, and I don’t think I ever will. But maybe that’s the whole point of all this. Because even then, through writing, I’ve just discovered so much about myself. Enchantria was an escape for me and it was a place where I could confront all of my fears of not being good enough and of not fitting in in a place where I keep telling myself I should fit in just because of my race. Those fears are not gone. But through writing, I’ve at least been able to bring them to light and at least try to look them in the eye.
And to have AI churn out ‘stories’ to just replace something like this is… well, dreadful.
I was nearly in tears when I read that piece of news linked above. Creative professionals like singers, artists, and writers already struggle with making money. There’s no point denying that. It’s most certainly NOT impossible and I truly do believe that if you really really do strive for it, you will get there. No matter how long it takes.
And now to have our work able to be stolen and just put into AI to create a soulless story….
I just really do not have the words to speak on this.
But since I don’t want to pile on more negativity that’s already in this rather negative-seeming world… I’ll end with this. If you are a writer reading this, feeling hopeless (you won’t believe how many people I’ve seen thinking it’s hopeless as writers now because of this), then I will say this.
Yes, it feels like the odds are stacked horribly against us. The odds are being stacked more and more against us.
But just think of it this way.
Storytelling is something that has survived billions of years. Ever since the first humans.
It is something that has gotten people through thousands of years of hopelessness.
Storytelling is a long and ancient tradition that has lived on so much longer than all of us.
And it will continue to live on much longer than all of us. It’ll live on for thousands more years, long after these fancy rich AI people. I dislike naming names, but I do have three particular people in mind… One of whom I do hope is receiving thousands of emails from the Authors Guild.
People like them won’t always last. Heck, people like me won’t always last. But storytelling will. That much I am certain of.
Your stories do matter, because they are shaped by all your experiences and hopes and fears and dreams. You are the only one who can write these stories.
Your stories will last.
Believe me.
Do not shy away from writing your book just because you think it’s hopeless. If we all kept up that thinking, we’d be nowhere.
Your book could be the one book that someone desperately needed in a tough time. Even against things like AI and the government and all the dreadful things happening in the world… think of that one person. That one person your story could impact.
And if not for the readers, write for yourself. There’s so much to writing for yourself, so much that I cannot even fit it all into this post. But just believe me.
You can do this. I believe in you. And we’re all cheering you on, even against the seemingly impossible.
Keep writing and keep dreaming and Society of Ink and Stars forever,
-Isabelle Knight
MG Fantasy Author & Co-Founder of The Society of Ink and Stars (an exclusive society of young writers that yes, I have not mentioned before and just randomly put in here… what? I planned to make some sort of announcement post but this is far more important!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
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