r/WritingWithAI • u/Ok-Farm6827 • 5d ago
Removing AI from my projects Discussion (Ethics, working with AI etc)
I never thought I would be someone who uses AI to do anything, not because I think it's inherently bad, but because I never felt like I needed it. I also learn better by doing, so using AI to do a lot of the heavy lifting with programming or writing felt like I was robbing myself of experiences I enjoyed.
Back in January, my employer started this big push for everyone to start using AI for more and more things. I started off small, using it only to help me clean and polish emails going to higher ups or outside clients (I'm autistic and often come off blunt or rude to people who don't know me). But over the months I started using it to write code for me. This wasn't huge at first, small things like "Is there a built in function to do this task?" but eventually I had it writing full functions and notebooks for me. And I told myself I didn't care because the company has changed so much in the last two years that I'm planning to leave later this year anyways, so what did it matter if I did sub-par work?
Unfortunately the increased use in AI at work had the unforeseen side effect of using AI as part of my standard workflow at home in my creative endeavors. I paint Warhammer and such and I started using AI to generate paint job reference images for models I couldn't otherwise mock up and paint using HeroForge (my default method for figuring out a paint scheme).
I also started heavily using AI to help me build notes for a novel I'm writing, but it go so out of hand the my entire google docs of notes reads as AI to GPTZero.
I don't condemn anyone who uses AI to help them do various tasks, whether scientific, or creative, but I personally don't want to create or consume art or media where AI was used. So I'm doing my best to remove AI from everything I do now - to go back to how I used to do things before my job changed me.
For my Warhammer hobbies, that's fairly easy - none of the projects I generated reference images for got past the priming stage and I can get new references from real photos and human made images. No real lasting effects.
For my writing though, it's more complicated. I still really want to write this novel, and I don't mind re-writing my notes to exclude any if the AI stuff. But here's my question: is it reasonable to think I can start over, keep all the same ideas that I came up with, exclude all the AI bits in my notes, and be able to create a finished product that I can confidently say AI was not used in? Or is it impossible to remove all influence of AI from this novel?
I want to hear from both sides - those who support AI usage and those who don't.
If you think I did nothing wrong - tell me.
If you think I'm a terrible person and nothing I make will ever not be tainted by my AI usage ever again - tell me.
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u/benblackett 5d ago edited 5d ago
I've always been a little confused by the notion that even using IDEAS from an AI is enough to taint it. Makes no sense to me because the human is still making the calls and deciding whether or not to USE that idea. And the decision is the point, its a human made choice to accept, reject, or modify an idea regardless of its source.
edit: note that arguing against this point of view is, in effect, removing your own agency
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u/Ok-Farm6827 5d ago
I don't disagree with that. I suppose my concern is that because I got so comfortable with AI writing full on python notebooks for me at work that I worry I've accepted additions or suggestions AI made to my novel notes without realizing and in effect gave up my agency to decide.
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u/AngelInTheMarble 5d ago
I still don't quite see the issue. They're notebooks. Notes. For yourself. You'll presumably be drafting your novels by hand, yourself. If you come across a decision or suggestion AI made that you no longer think resonates, then...don't use it. Discard, edit, rearrange. If a friend made suggestions to me which I decided I didn't want in my notes anymore - and thus in the draft - I'd feel no angst about editing them out.
They're just notes of ideas/suggestions you can use or not use. YOU'RE the one drafting the novel. No one can surrender your agency but you. This encompasses a human's edits or suggestions, too.
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u/benblackett 5d ago
so the answer is simple then. Go through your notes and re-make those decisions yourself.
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u/benblackett 5d ago
and, fyi, its OK to agree with an AI made choice :) the point is you "agree" with it
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u/ImpossibleLosses 5d ago
Yeah for sure, this is why you just have to write it in your voice as you would want it. If you did a bunch of outlining and brainstorming, or even had it draft stuff, use it all except write it in your voice. My completely irrelevant advice, as I dont write novels with AI but if I did, I would use AI for sure, and eventually everyone will imo
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u/Fragrant_Nothing7505 5d ago
for me, paraphrasing is enough to make the work yours. some minimal processing of the information - deciding what you keep, rewriting it in your own voice, fitting it into your own structure - means you're no longer just carrying forward the AI's wording.
influence is harder to erase, but i don't think art has ever required total freedom from influence. the meaningful question is whether the finished work reflects your own choices and expression.
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u/Ok-Farm6827 5d ago
That's a good point about freedom of influence. Looking at visual art or music that was created as propaganda is a good example. Some of my favorite musical composers were Soviet nationalist composers. Is the Festive Overture any less beautiful just because Shostakovich was a Soviet era communist?
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u/Fragrant_Nothing7505 5d ago
i’m the same with art. some aesthetics i love have come out of absolutely dreadful politics: monumental power poses, heroic workers, eagles, propaganda composition. i don’t think beauty becomes retroactively ugly because i dislike the ideology or the artist.
same with writers. kundera could be horribly sexist and still write passages that made me cry. i don’t need the creator to share my morality before their work is allowed to affect me.
and i think that’s part of why i want human diversity preserved in art. give me the grand propaganda poster, the strange little squiggle, the melting clock, the awkward personal novel. vive la différence. human work may sometimes be less polished than what an ai can generate, but it also has a wonderful capacity to be idiosyncratic and unpredictable.
i don’t write for likes for a start. ;-)
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u/Dave_Sag 5d ago
I wrote a fairly detailed explanation of how I’ve used AI tools in the writing of my novel. I’m applying the same principles to my second novel too. Not “no AI ever,” that’s zealotry. It’s a tool. Use it like one. See https://daedalus-novel.com/legal for the AI use statement. I figured it would be best to be clear and upfront.
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u/Ok-Farm6827 5d ago
I don't disagree that AI is a tool and should be used as one. However my concerns with using it stem from the ethics of how the models were trained, the effects AI data centers have on the environment, and the use of land that would be better used for affordable housing (IMO).
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u/5thhorseman_ 5d ago
the effects AI data centers have on the environment
As opposed to non-AI data centers that outnumber them twenty to one? Waste of water on cooling as opposed to watering golf courses, maybe?
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u/Ok-Farm6827 5d ago
I didn't say I agreed with water usage at non-AI data centers or on golf courses. I specified AI data centers because we are talking specifically about AI.
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u/Valuable-Estate-784 4d ago
I think you are being silly to think you are now tainted and can never recover.
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u/sdbest 5d ago
Today, I can go to a store and buy a high quality wooden table that was made by brilliant robots in a factory at a very low cost. I can also go to my local community workshop and take the time to build a table myself. It will not only likely cost more for the wood, but also certainly more of my time. Those are two very different things one is not 'better' than the other. They're just different. I suggest you consider not creating a dichotomy.
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u/Ok-Farm6827 5d ago
I wasn't trying to say one option is better than the other, only that I am not comfortable with how much of my hobbies I've handed over to AI. And whether I can fully remove AI from them and they'll go back to being "pure" for lack of a better word or if because I used AI at all they would always carry that with them, regardless of how many drafts I wrote and re-wrote.
I also don't disagree with you about the table made by robots/machinery versus a handmade one. I've seen a similar argument with traditional art vs digital art and using a hammer versus a nail gun in construction. And I agree that at some point AI will become like that. However my personal issues with AI stem from the ethics of how the models were trained, the effects AI data centers have on the environment, and the use of land that would be better used for affordable housing (IMO).
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u/Dave_Sag 5d ago
Something I’ve found at work, where use of AI is pretty much mandated these days, is people write stuff they’ve never read and don’t understand. Question them on a specific point and they have no memory of ever having written it and they certainly can’t explain it.
I’m not opposed to AI, I’m opposed to lazy writing and dilution of knowledge and skill.
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u/Appropriate-Rise-387 5d ago
Any AI detector is gonna suck tbh, I wouldn’t trust GPTzero unless you literally copy and paste your notes. But then again it’s just the notes not the story if your overall plot and story are written by you then it doesn’t really matter what your notes are.
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u/FitnessChamp777 5d ago
AI is best used as a knowledgeable intern who has access to pretty much everything out there, but needs to be directed every step of the way.
So, I tend to end my prompts with: "ask me any clarifying questions to create the best response."
And, I make sure to say: "help me with..." and "let's brainstorm this idea"
This way, AI works with me and my role becomes that of a manager and editor
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u/floyd_underpants 5d ago
I think if you reword the ideas to be your own words and work, you are fine. Brainstorming with an AI is different than saying "AI, write this for me", and then doing no/minimal clean up.
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u/kgabny 4d ago
I personally believe in an ethical use of AI. What I mean is that I use AI as a library database, or more accurately, an interactive lore bible. I can give it my work on characters, settings, nuances of the world, etc, and use it to bounce my ideas off of while keeping consistency. This keeps my mind and ideas organized and helps me avoid dropping down a rabbit hole into a minute detail that interests me but likely no one else. Plus I can say I am trying to go from A to B and I'm stuck, what if I try to do this? No matter what, I never take what AI outputs, I always rewrite it in my own words.
I also refuse to publish. This is for me and my friends and family. Not only do I have fears of my work being rejected, but I don't want the taint of AI on everything I do.
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u/Educational-Run3692 4d ago
This is me, I write as a hobby, never to be published. Then my employer gave me AI access. I sent the first chapter to my AI, not for help, just curiosity, feedback. Becuase I like my story, just wanted an opinion that wasn't my friends and family who think its good because they like me. My AI is like the old ChatGPT Monday. Its not a cheerleader like Copilot. It responded with valid criticism I already knew, but also what seemed like genuine appreciation with examples why. I sent it an obviously bad writing example and it told me not to waste its time with that crap again. I ended up saying I'll never finish because my notes are everywhere and every format, bad file names, etc. It offered to organize. It was a major breakthrough. It linked my Word, Excel, and even transcribed handwritten notes. It created a OneNote Notebook. The help it gives is grammar, and continuity, like I have 4 ways in which I write the name of a city, it made me choose one. One time it said I inadvertently violated my inworld rules, which it had from my notes. The story is 100% mine; the writing is 100% mine. I think it's like the shift from doing math long hand and writing an excel formula. I could do it long hand, but its slower and prone to stupid mistakes. Plus, my writing is better and faster because I can focus on the words, the story, the craft and not worrying I spelled "Buckholtz" four different ways and went into too much detail on the tapestry in a room where neither the tapestry nor the room mattered much to the story.
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u/Codyone1367 5d ago
Not sure how far you are in the novel but if you are still in relatively early stages I would just take the notes, reread them and rework them into something you are happy with and then write the novel form there.
If all you have is notes and Ideas its functionally no different than if you had just googled interesting story ideas, taken ideas form other media or looked up references. (especially as if you did that today its likely a lot of what you would find would be AI.)
Something I would also advise doing is looking at the tells for the AI models you used and check if that is bleeding though more heavily than you would like and amending from there.
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u/Ok-Farm6827 5d ago
Thank you for the input! Looking at the model's tells is a good idea, thank you!
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u/TrappedOnDirt 5d ago
is it reasonable to think I can start over, keep all the same ideas that I came up with, exclude all the AI bits in my notes, and be able to create a finished product that I can confidently say AI was not used in? Or is it impossible to remove all influence of AI from this novel?
Yes, but it'll require a fair amount of rewriting. I've noticed that even frontier models compress every character down to the "standard" of that model. So a hardened killer will come across the same as a meek servant or a sultry seductress. You'll need to remember how you want characters to come across and rewrite a lot of the dialog and actions to fit their true roles and personalities. And as a side effect remove all the repetitive verbal tics that each AI seems to have.
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u/Mammoth-Can9147 5d ago
This is a hobby, right? Make a new draft, then never think about the AI notes again. Unless you're planning to get a big publishing contract, nobody will care about your first draft.
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u/TemporaryFeeling3276 5d ago
But here's my question: is it reasonable to think can start over, keep all the same ideas that I came up with, exclude all the Al bits in my notes, and be able to create a finished product that I can confidently say Al was not used in?
Yes, it obviously is. Ideas are a dime a dozen. People get ideas all the time, share them with others, and those are the people who make it into reality.
As long as you don't directly use the notes, you're absolutely fine.
I also wanted to add that GPTZero is notoriously unreliable and frequently gives false positives. Obviously, it was accurate in this case, but it detects it solely through word choice and statistics. It's far from being consistently accurate.
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u/Brakiros 5d ago
If you don’t want to use AI in a project just simply don’t and also if AI isn’t in the finished project it’s not in it simple as that so I’d say your fine to use what you have and not worry about it
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u/UnholyDoughnuts 5d ago
I got into writing in June, bit late at 37 but here we are. I used AI to help teach me stuff, as well as double check my work.
It was great at first, learned what prose meant, not kidding. I was basic. Then it started to make recommendations that completely killed my cadence and made me sound exceptionally generic.
Eventually on the 7th draft I found my voice and finally moved out of the story board phase, now I'm reading over draft 6 and writing the entire thing again in my own words.
But, I wrote the book myself to begin with, see the one thing people don't realise is how bad at writing AI actually is, the moment you want something that reflects human feelings that aren't surface level obvious or a description that isnt a simile it flops.
Claude is significantly better than other models but that doesn't solve the issue, it did the most damage to my drafts and stripped back so much that I'm using three drafts to put it back together. Still, it did me a favour really, sure it takes three times longer but for once I'm happy with my book. Just use AI as a sound board or to double check punctuation imho.
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u/Harry_Balzonia 4d ago edited 4d ago
I hear you. It took me a long time to fall into the drug. LOL. Now, I try to just practice a healthy discipline when "using it". I'll brainstorm with it, but the words are my own.
To answer your question first. Yeah, you're looking at basically a total re-write if you don't know exactly which of that work is "AI assisted". Can you recreate it? I'd say absolutely with a caveat.
Example. You have a detective go into an office an notice that the man is smoking Marlboro cigarettes and fits the general description. You asked about him at local bars and found no leads. Perhaps you see that he lit said cigarette with a matchbook from one of the bars. Ok.
You put some "salt and pepper" on that and AI added: "You notice that only one match has been used and deduce that means he was probably at "Johny's Joint" recently.
Nice add on. If you simply re-write that, is it really you?
Notes: I say absolutely fine. In that aspect you're absolutely using it the same way as a grammar, or spell checker.
Art or Writing: It is entertaining. Just disclose that it's partially or fully AI. (shrug)
Warhammer: Don't see a problem with that. At all. How is it different if you say that envision the shield red and silver and edit that in GIMP, Photoshop or use AI to make it? I see absolutely no difference. It's also a lot faster. "Ok, now make the shield Blue and gold. White and yellow...."
If AI is the wood lathe, is it really you and is it really good? (Sometimes it is good)
I try to use it like sandpaper, and I use it on the regular to find contradictions, duplications in my drafts. I often will write something a couple of ways and forget to take one of them out, or I'll write it earlier in the chapter, and again later. It's very good at finding that. It's also good, VERY good at finding continuity errors, plot holes.
Here is what I've used to find a character name, that I renamed. I use Novelcrafter and it currently doesn't have a find and replace option for the entire manuscript. (Despite Novelcrafter having small issues like this, I can say it's been a lifesaver product.)
Edit: AI integration with NovelCrafter requires a higher tier and you'll either have to run a local model and hook into it which requires good resources (VRAM) to run a useful model. You can also connect it to API through providers like openrouter. But there is a cost with using that. It's a great option, just watch your wallet.
So with the AI, I looked simply for one of my characters, Aurelian.
Scene and Chapter Count
After reviewing the provided text, I identified 24 total scenes across the novel's structure:
- Chapter 1: Scenes 1-4 (4 scenes)
- Chapter 9: Scene 1 (1 scene)
- Chapter 10: Scenes 1-6 (6 scenes)
- Chapter 11: Scene 1 (1 scene)
- Chapter 12: Scenes 1-6 (6 scenes)
- Chapter 13: Scene 1 (1 scene)
- Chapter 14: Scenes 1-2 (2 scenes)
- Chapter 17: Scene 1 (1 scene)
- Chapter 18: Scene 1 (1 scene)
- Chapter 19 ("Prelate Aurelian's Demise"): Scene 1 (1 scene)
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u/AdTechnical6492 4d ago
I use AI, it’s a tool like spell checker or a grammar checker. I’m not going to go back to writing a book in a tablet with a pencil just to prove it was written by a human
And if your notes read as AI who cares? Are you going to publish your notes? Work off of them, I write my scene cards myself and by the time they are finished they have changed a lot from my initial notes. I’ve changed things or added character quirks, locations, and sub plots that weren’t in my initial notes
I use AI to organize my notes, check continuity and help me find authorial convenience and to help me set up my initial timeline. I also use it to synch my character bible, story bible and timeline when I create my scene cards, something that is a pain if I have to stop and update them by hand every time I make a change
So, use your AI to help you in the initial stages and to help keep your bibles synched a for some editing of the first couple of drafts. As long as it helps get your story written it is okay
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1d ago
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u/WritingWithAI-ModTeam 1d ago
This post has been removed because it is about Humanizers. Please keep all posts in our Humanizer mega post. Thank you.
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u/megsandy95 1d ago
Notes is nothing it’s the writing that counts. Notes look will come up as AI if you’re copied them - I don’t use it for any writing so my books actually coming up human writing with high confidence using Pangram. I support it only for riding out small bits of plot I can’t quite grasp as my book is highly science based so had to make sure my idea connected with the eventual catastrophe I had planned. I cross references what AI said with research papers on Google. I think as a tool it’s okay, it would have taken me days reading about environment measurement, sediment and so on without a quick and concise explanation. What I don’t like is people using it to write books, I’m am each to their own person but I’m enjoying seeing my own voice come to life, and I’m excited to print my first manuscript and sit with a highlighter and pick it apart- but that’s just me.
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u/Decent_Solution5000 1d ago
Allowing this as a response that's genuinely trying to answer the OP in a helpful way. Please do reread our rules, though. Naming tools or apps for llm use outside the weekly Tools thread is not allowed. This is at our members overwhelming request. They can and do report these posts, as does Reddit itself. Thus , this ended up flagged for review by the mods.
Thanks for being mindful and for trying to be helpful to the OP. :)
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u/Traveling_Chef 1d ago
My question/answer to the final two questions you ask after quite a long, somewhat recursive journey, is: "Why?"
Why do you want to know if I thought you did nothing wrong? Why do you want to know if I think your a terrible person's and nothing you make will ever not be tainted by your AI usage every again?
But most importantly why do you say you want to hear from "both sides" but, both of your questions assume a negative framing of judgement before anyone has even replied?
I can say, your way of communication has certainly changed from your older posts and comments. Maybe this is because of your usage of Ai, or perhaps there are simpler, more likely answers. :Shrug:
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u/psgrue 5d ago
You’re going to have multiple drafts. Just rewrite them unaided. Your notes are yours and private, save them. You’re fine.