Writers weigh risks of AI creeping into their work

Steven Rosenbaum set out to write a book on how artificial intelligence changes reality. He used the tools only for research and checked every line himself. When the book appeared, it contained more than half a dozen misattributed or invented quotations.

Rosenbaum later said the output of AI could be “staggeringly wrong,” yet the errors still slipped through. Similar problems have surfaced elsewhere. A short story that won a Commonwealth prize drew accusations that it carried the hallmarks of AI writing. Journalists have also been caught citing fake AI-generated quotes.

One columnist has chosen to avoid the tools altogether. When AI answers appear by default in search engines, the writer rejects them. The decision rests on more than accuracy concerns. The columnist argues that AI produces a recognizable tone: short declarative sentences, informal mimicry of conversation, and a bland register that now appears in customer-service scripts, social-media posts, and press releases.

The writer worries that repeated exposure may already be shaping their own prose. They describe the process of finding the right word or image as essential to thinking itself. Using AI to generate lines, they say, severs the link between feeling and expression.

Research cited in the column indicates that reliance on large language models can reduce brain engagement. The columnist links this effect to a wider political climate of repetitive slogans and hedged statements. In that setting, the writer argues, the flattening of language makes it harder to distinguish real ideas from empty phrasing.

Rosenbaum observed that any working writer who sits in front of a computer is already using AI in some way because the tools are both seductive and useful. The columnist rejects that framing, saying the choice to avoid the technology is not merely about convenience. It is, they write, an investment in keeping the record credible.

The column closes with a line from George Bernard Shaw: “The liar’s punishment is, not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.”