“Do you ever use AI for creative writing?”

Murarka does not use any form of artificial intelligence in the final product of his published novels or stories. AI may be used as a tool in things such as marketing and caption generation, and where it is heavily contributory, it will be disclaimed.

Transcript

When you're writing, if you've come across a brain block or whatever, have you ever used AI to help brainstorm ideas?

With my latest novel, I've used AI not to brainstorm—to brainstorm not ideas, but kind of solutions to logistical real problems. Because the next novel I'm writing relates to libertarianism. And because libertarianism is really not widely explored in the context of an actual governmental system, and I'm humble enough to know that despite the fact that I adore libertarianism, I don't—there are certain things, for example, say you want to figure out how libertarianism would work with pollution, because pollution is such an abstract thing.

If you own your own land and you're burning charcoal on your land, but that charcoal is affecting the environment of your neighbor, how does your neighbor protect themselves from being affected by you? Because in a libertarian environment, would be necessary. So I might go to AI and ask AI to kind of brainstorm with me. Doesn't mean I'll necessarily use the answer, but it just helps kind of almost have a discussion partner. So in that sense, I kind of have, but not much—like a little bit here and there for just very intricate questions that I didn't necessarily know the answer to.

But do you use it as part of your creative writing process? No. Editing, no. Cover art, no. No editing, because people think editing—whether it's copy, like editing—you should not ever use AI, because there's a difference in copy editing and editing.

Editing is when you're reorganizing your paragraphs and your words, and you're literally organizing chapters. To let AI do that, you're like letting AI determine how your art is going to be presented and how people are going to consume your art. It can very strongly affect the end result.
And copy editing—people think copy editing is just commas. It's not. Where you put a comma directly affects the way it's absorbed, the pace, the rhythm, the poetry of it. So even copy editing, which people might think is a benign thing to use AI for, you shouldn't—you should do it yourself. Because sometimes you need to repeat the same word. You know, it's a snafu where you don't want to have the same word five times on the same page; you have to be able to break those rules. AI won't do that for you.

So I would never use AI for any final product at all.