Photo by Dragos Gontariu on Unsplash
Both the Society of Authors and the Authors Guild have a Made by Humans type label for non-AI novels and stories.
They rely entirely on individual honesty, and that makes me sceptical. I have document folders with hundreds of notes, drafts, versions, redrafting plans etc. Who could afford a scheme to check with rigour? I am not leaping to join those schemes. If I do, it’s a declaration of opposition to fakery, not a proof I’m telling the truth.
I strive not to use ‘AI’ in anything I do. I disable or sidestep every ‘AI’ function on every programme that I can and I avoid allowing my work to be scraped.
There is absolutely nothing in the work of creating fiction – plotting, ideas, characters, structure, marketing – that I would use ‘AI’ for. Why would I? These things in italics are some of the most enjoyable experiences of my life. Marketing requires a genuine understanding of who you seek to reach.
I distrust ‘AI’ search intensely.
I use a designer who does not use ‘AI’ technology.
I use general artwork from publically available copyright free sources. In particular family photos, artvee (public realm art), Unsplash (photographs supplied free if we credit), Library of Congress, Wikicommons, etc.
The design and photo editing programmes I do use have ‘AI’ functionality which I don’t use.
Boundaries are not clear.
The grey area: I do use spellcheck and grammar check (specifically, Microsoft Editor) which flags stuff. I am getting significently worse at getting these right – glares at age and Covid.
Outside hononyms, conservatively 80% of what Editor flags is stuff I have done deliberately or it is flagged because it does not understand the sentence, or the range of human styles. I reject most of it, and when it suggests alternatives, they are usually wrong too. It does flag overlong sentences in work I have edited several times, which is useful. (Had Microsoft asked, can we use your work to improve spell and grammar check I would have said yes, I guess. Microsoft Editor was developed for a specific purpose, not a generic dream of universality.)
But I do this broadly knowing what good writing is.
I pay for a human copyeditor and proofreader. These are not skills a computer can do.