I have a complicated relationship with tech, mostly because I’ve lived through enough technological changes to know that “new” doesn’t automatically mean “bad.” I’ve watched digital art go from something people questioned to something completely standard.
I’ve also watched the publishing industry change from a gate-kept industry built around traditionally accepted standards, where independent publishing was something you did when you were desperate, into what it is today. Self-publishing has come into its own, despite a few outliers publishing poor-quality products and giving the industry a bad reputation. I, along with countless other writers, have continued building our careers through it.
Now it seems things are turning again with the introduction of artificial intelligence, which is being headlined as “the future,” while anyone who doesn’t embrace it can be sneered at for being behind the times. Along with this push toward AI, we are also seeing AI detectors being fed short- and long-form writing, with traditionally published authors leaving traditional publishing and going self-published facing even more uncertainty around how their work may be judged.
I am not 100% for the use of AI, nor am I fully against it either. I go more in-depth than I have before about my career history, my life before becoming an “indie,” and how I have watched creative industries change throughout my lifetime in my Dear Indie column, Dear Indie: Where Do You Stand on AI?
This piece is, to date, one of the most revealing things I have written about my perspective on these industries, both the good and the bad. The reason I chose to be this revealing is because the context matters. It matters when I explain my thought process, why I am against opting in to scanning or testing through “AI detectors,” and why I do not approve of any of my work being used for those purposes.
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