I wrote the article on AI and writing for the BBC Writers website blog a year or so ago. I wanted to update any interested people on why I’ve still been avoiding AI for my screenwriting and other creative writing. I worry that newer writers like myself are the most vulnerable to giving in to the temptation to use AI for creative work — particularly given the results you can get from Anthropic’s Claude models. So here’s why I’ve resisted.
It took me multiple training courses and five years of almost daily writing practice to develop my writing to the point that I was invited onto the BBC VOICES scheme two years ago. I learned a huge amount from the Voices experience, and now I feel I have so much still to learn. Not the theory; I know the theory back to front and inside out. That’s easy. It’s learning how to bring everything together in one script- character, plot, sharing my own deeper self, forms, format, and so forth. Then working out how on earth I’m meant to rewrite this thing that I’ve read and rewritten so many times before. A story I can never again experience as a new reader would. And I have to do all this without making it WORSE.
Finding the wherewithal to do all that sometimes feels almost overwhelming, but I have faith I will do it. Because others have (switch on your TV and see!) It’s just a matter of time. Plus, the journey is so rewarding: after years of promising myself I’d write stories, I’ve now been doing it for years.
I know the human brain, heart and body have the wherewithal to do this thing, because others before me have done it. It’s a long path but I know there’s a destination.
I say “the human brain, heart and body have the wherewithal to do this thing”, but really I mean “to LEARN this”. I’m an AI and machine learning consultant in my day job, so getting minds to learn is an obsession for me. But whereas with an AI I can heavily influence and drive its learning speed and direction, with myself I depend on one main “learning algorithm”: write, write, rewrite and write (with some reading thrown in — see BBC writers script library for example).
We do not understand fully how our brains and bodies learn, but we know they do. However, we do know how to PREVENT our brains and bodies from learning. Using replacement tools. For example a child who uses a calculator for all arithmetic will never learn to do arithmetic themselves, and not see the point of learning it. A person who drives everywhere with a satnav will never know their way around town. And a screenwriter who uses AI before they have trained their deepest selves to write without it, will never learn to write. Learning to write fiction is harder than arithmetic or map reading. It is harder than learning to code. It is harder than calculus or getting a degree in maths. I have done all the above, and none of them compare in complexity and required-grit to the art of learning to write compelling meaningful fiction.
I know it can be frustrating for newer writers like myself to feel stuck on a “career plateau“. It can feel like the industry is ignoring us, or that the task is too hard. But the worst possible response to this is to open ChatGPT or Anthropic Claude in a moment of weakness. Resistance is crucial. The industry is desperate for original emotional meaningful well-executed scripts.
In one sense, I did not want to write this article. It’s a competitive market out there! I know that still-learning-screenwriters who use AI for their fiction will be taken out of the competitive market. It will dull the edge of their sword, it will discourage them when it fails to deliver. It will give them the message that writing is too easy, too hard, too inhuman; not worth it anymore because AIs will be able to do it. So that’s one less human competitor for me to worry about!
But the truth is I want us all to prosper. I gain so much joy and meaning from reading and watching the innovative work of great talent. I have come to look up to these people with joy and (a little healthy) envy.
And I have come to believe this — if I have not yet spent 8–10 years regularly writing fiction, and I start to pick up AI and use it regularly in my creative writing, then I will never learn to write like these people I look up to.
On that note, what’s 283 times 3?