Ah, the AI writing tools. Depending on who you talk to, some will say that AI writing tools are a game changer.

The tools can help them with line editing and check for any issues that tend to slip under the radar.

Stuck in your writing and need ideas on how you can proceed with the story? Some tools such as Quillbot allow you to brainstorm ideas for the next scene.

You can even ask the tool to continue the story for you if you wish.

Are you the kind of person who has to scour for thesaurus all over the internet and has a hard time writing sensory descriptions?

The AI writing tools such as ProWritingAid can help you with that too.

But talk about the AI writing tools with those who shun AI tools of any kind, they’re certain to come at you with a pitchfork in their grip.

Their argument? These tools will make authors go extinct like dinosaurs.

Sure, AI tools such as GPT-4 may not be able to write a full-length novel right now. But give it some time and it can spit out a full-length fantasy novel before you know it.

As much as I’m more on the pro-AI side, I get their sentiment on why AI can threaten their livelihood.

Give it some time and the next few iterations of AI can spit out a book better and faster than any human author does.

But despite that, they still get it all wrong big times about these AI tools.

The truth about these AI writing tools

When it comes to AI tools in general, those who shun these tools tend to have this notion that all they need to do is tell the AI what they want to write and it spits out a full-length novel for you.

Knowing how fast AI tools are progressing over the years, it’s not far-fetched to believe that it will eventually reach that point someday.

But no matter how many iterations of AI we’ll be seeing in our lifetime, they still come with limitations that many anti-AI people failed to realize.

Here are some of them.

How well the AI can produce the result for you will depend on how good the input it receives from the user

Yes, how good the result will be solely depend on you, the user.

If you want the AI to produce a result that will blow your socks off, then you need to be amazing at entering the right prompts.

The more specific the prompts are, the better the result will be.

Don’t expect the AI to produce a result that will wow you when you enter vague prompts.

While prompting is crucial if you’re using an AI tool such as ChatGPT and a generative AI tool such as Midjourney, you can apply the same concept to writing tools such as ProWritingAid as well.

Let’s say you’re writing a scene where you know that the characters are confused about what just happened to them.

With ProWritingAid, you can rephrase the same sentence into a much better sensory description that describes the expression that these characters have.

But if you don’t have the slightest idea what kind of expression that the characters will make in that scene, ProWritingAid can’t flesh out the description for you no matter how hard you try.

When it comes to using any AI tools, being specific with the result you want to have can go a long way.

And that leads me to my next point.

It still demands creativity on your side

In the case of generative AI, then yes, it’s true that you’re not the one who produces the image from scratch.

But it still requires input from you no matter how advanced the AI tools are.

It’s not going to produce the result you want only because you want the AI to generate a picture of an elf wearing a Mario costume.

This is where your creativity comes in.

If you want the generative AI to produce an image of an elf wearing a Mario costume, your prompt needs to go beyond that.

What kind of image do you have in mind other than an elf wearing a Mario costume?

Do you want to have Christmas lighting as a background? Or do you want the image to take place in a forest decorated with Christmas lights in it? What kind of pose do you want the elf to make?

Flesh out what you have in mind about the image, and the AI tool will do its magic to produce the image you want.

The Ai isn’t going to magically come up with the image you want if you don’t put your creative spin on it.

It still relies on the creative input from you.

The tone of the writing that AI produces can sound flat to many of us

This one holds true if you write nonfiction or perhaps a serious topic for someone or on your blog.

Unless you train the AI to write in your voice, what comes out of the AI tends to sound flat and lacks personality.

Don’t believe me?

Here’s the suggestion that comes out of Quillbot on how I should write the opening for this blog post.

Compare that to the opening that I write myself for this blog post, you’ll notice that the opening that I write myself sounds wittier than the one generated from Quillbot.

Not to toot my own horn, but it sure is better.

For some people, any writing generated from Quillbot doesn’t sound so bad if injecting your voice into it isn’t that important to you.

But if you want the writing to come equipped with your writing style and personality, then you need to train the AI with your writing first.

Otherwise, the tone that comes out of the AI tool will sound flat as a surfboard.

That’s a big no-no if your writing voice is a part of your author brand.

Where will these tools go from here onward?

Not surprisingly, all the issues that we have with AI tools may no longer exist anymore considering how fast technology is improving over time.

Just take a look at all the AI writing tools that we have right now and compare that to when they first came out.

Grammarly and ProWritingAid, anyone?

Not only have these tools become better over the years, but they’re improving at a faster rate too.

Does it mean that the next iteration of GPT will allow us to write a full-length novel based on what we put in our prompts?

Well, I won’t be surprised that it has the capability to do so in the future. But it doesn’t mean that authors will become extinct and soon become relics of the past.

If you’re worried about the AI replacing authors, then start building your author brand now.

That’s how you can get the readers to stick with you regardless of the thousands of books that come out as a result of AI.

P.S. Engaging with your readers on Twitter is important. But we all know how Twitter can be a time-suck and take your precious time away from your writing if you let it be.

If you’re looking for effective ways to manage your presence on Twitter, take a look at my Twitter Marketing for Business guide.

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