Dear readers, welcome to news for emerging authors from the month of May; with the most headlines about the Fake Intellectual (AI) that I have read this year so far. And since apparently we can no longer avoid it, let’s roll straight into the heart of the matter.

I am not going to go into each headline, but rather offer a summary of what authors – and especially new and unpublished writers – might be up against in the coming months.

• AI suspicions were raised around a regional winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize.
• The fallout was that various other prizes that champion unpublished writers were forced to take a stance on AI and review their protocols for detection (though no one has a foolproof system for it as yet).
• A children’s prize had shortlistees pull out when concerns were raised about a fellow shortlistee using AI (which they eventually admitted to); flagging that creators are now afraid to even be associated with the accusation of AI use.
• Elsewhere, AI is being used to imitate audiobook voice actors and steal their likeness for profit; authors are being flooded with emails pretending to be from the publishing industry to scam them into handing over cash in exchange for ‘expertise’; and entire audiobooks are being uploaded to YouTube as ‘podcasts’ where AI is used as a poorly-delivered voiceover.

So here we are, all the way in it. And unfortunately – inevitably – new writers at the beginning of their careers will bear the brunt of this hard push for the Fake Intellectual that is being spearheaded by those most likely to profit from the downfall of human creativity. But is it a downfall, or are we all allowing ourselves to be taken on a little ‘AI or die’ ride to what is not necessarily an inevitable future?

Being an author today is not for the fainthearted or the impatient. It’s for the stubborn, for people who hold words in great esteem

What happened with the Commonwealth Short Story Prize is an example of two things: subjective tastes in writing – which happens with all writing prizes, no matter how prestigious; and the internet. We all now have the ability to call each other out, hold strangers accountable when they do things we don’t like, and generally cast aspersions with researched facts or, more often than not, just opinion.

Which for a writer, is a pretty difficult place to be, because our words are everything. It always comes down to this, dear authors; our words. I am not a fan of the Fake Intellectual, but I can see why someone at the beginning of their career might turn to it for help or to ‘polish’ something up that they aren’t sure about. If you’re such a person, you have to be prepared for the consequences of the use of any digital tool, but especially AI. It will affect your development as a writer. It will affect your ability to establish your own unique voice. And if the headlines above were not clear enough, it will affect your chances in writing competitions and getting your work seen by industry professionals; possibly limiting your progression if your use of AI goes far beyond ‘a little assistance’ into full on mimicry of your favourite writers’ words – words which have been fed into that digital tool without their permission.

I have spoken about going into the publishing industry with your eyes open, and that goes for your use of AI too. What are you risking in using it, and what gains will it offer for your career in the long run, if any?

We cannot protect ourselves from false accusations or from negative associations when it comes to social media, beyond giving our word and knowing what the truth is for ourselves. Unfortunately, the more we feed the Fake Intellectual, the smarter it appears, and the more we doubt the very knowledge that built it in the first place.

We are in a snake-eating-itself situation at the moment, and I don’t have a fix for you. But I want you to continue to submit to these prizes, to keep writing your stories as though your livelihood depends on it and, for goodness sake, keep receipts, e.g. your handwritten notes, your early drafts, that email you sent to yourself at 2.30am on a Tuesday with an idea for a story that could change your life; that sort of thing.

If you are hoping to submit something to a writing competition or book prize and you’re not solely reliant on AI to make you a ‘better writer’, you should have these things in your possession; you should be drafting and redrafting, and editing until it’s ready. AI cannot do that for you; it can spin out a version of what you might like to say or a sentence you’re trying to construct, but it can’t go through your original thoughts, feelings, experiences and vocabulary for you; only you can do that. In the same way that only you know when a piece of writing, a story, a manuscript is ready.

Being an author today is not for the fainthearted or the impatient. It’s for the stubborn, for people who hold words in great esteem, with the hope that one day what they have written will inspire someone else to be just as stubborn, steadfast and erudite with their authorship.