Since generative artificial intelligence (gen-AI) burst upon the scene in 2023, corporations and people who need creative content—written, graphic, musical—have been relying on large language models (LLMs) to produce that content for them. For some, it’s been an experiment: what can gen-AI do? For others, it’s an opportunity to decouple human effort from projects and reap the cost savings. What does this all mean for authors and those in the publishing industry?
LLMs are programs that use sophisticated algorithms to learn from content already written by humans, discern patterns of expression, and use them whenever, however, and wherever it chooses. Because gen-AI has such a vast lexicon of content on which to train, computer-generated writing sounds much like human-generated writing but the software averages language patterns, so it will tend to use the same common patterns over and over. This repetition of style and word choice trends toward sameness and banality. The writing may check every box for correct sentence structure, even punchy pacing, but it lacks the variety and nuance inherent in human expression.
Sure, gen-AI can produce in minutes what used to take writers hours or even years to produce, but that content is stolen from writers who were never consulted and whose consent for the use of their material was neither solicited nor obtained. Because of that, content produced with gen-AI cannot and is not protected under copyright law in the United States of America.
The same goes for graphic imagery and music produced by gen-AI: neither can be copyrighted.
Therefore, the “author” who enters prompts into artificial intelligence software to produce a story may indeed produce something “readable.” But it can’t be copyrighted. The author who enters prompts into software to produce a story then goes over the AI-generated content to have AI then rewrite each sentence still produces content that can’t be copyrighted. Massaging AI-generated content is not writing. Publishing platforms require authors to indicate whether they use AI to produce their work.
Authors who do that often look to editors to “humanize” their computer-generated content. Editing cannot do this. The only solution is to rewrite the story. This is often more difficult than crafting the story from scratch.
Rewriting AI-generated content to “humanize” it and turn it into human expression that can be protected under copyright demands creativity, a wide vocabulary, and skillful writing to reproduce plot, preserve meaning and style, and retain tone. Hen House Publishing now offers this service at a starting rate of $0.25 per word.
If you have used gen-AI to produce your story and you want to protect that story, then you need a professional to rewrite it. Let’s talk. Schedule a call with Hen House Publishing to discuss your project.
