A Moral Dilemma: The Ethical Crisis Writers Face

If you cheat and no one sees you, is it still cheating? 

In my creative writing class of seventeen high school seniors, every single one of their short stories came up flagged as having used a AI to some degree. The percentages ranged from 11% to 68% probable AI use. Two thirds of their stories registered at more than 25% AI generated. These statistics came across through three different AI use detectors.

In this political climate, making art is sacred. Writing, music, visual art is essential to maintain truth and humanity in a world of censorship, slanted news, algorithms feeding a skewed view of the world. 

How am I supposed to teach them right from wrong in a world that encourages short cuts over authenticity? Creative expression will become unlearned if cheating through the use of AI goes unchecked. This has become a dilemma in morality.

Ethics is more important than ever. Our thoughts and ability to communicate them are all we own.

Earlier today, I saw an Instagram post in which an author’s agent told her to remove all similes and metaphors from her draft. This, after she’d already removed the em-dashes and any trace of the “Rule of Three.” These have become indicators of AI use apparently. 

She asked: What’s next? Semicolons? Poetic devices? Fair questions.

Stylistically, these are writer’s tools. They are the nuances writers use to express a unique voice. 

As AI gets smarter, will it reduce the ability to which writers can express themselves in fear of diction or syntax or use of literary devices as indicators of AI? Prose is at risk of becoming bland–the very thing that human writers are not. (The use of the em-dash is not lost on me, and I refuse to not use what comes naturally to me because AI has adopted its use).

I thought human writing would never become extinct because it is our very humanness to which readers connect. Now, I fear we are not only producing a generation of those who would rather take a short cut balanced with an industry fearful of using the tools that make writing an art.

So, I have to ask: is human composition doomed?

Please let me know your thoughts in the comments.