Grammar, Writing, and AI

This month’s blog is a little different in that we’re looking not at a particular grammar issue but at a larger issue that affects grammar: AI.

Many of today’s digital tools can help writers with their sentence skills. There are sites we can learn from and apps we can run our text through to make sure it’s grammatically correct. We can ask a grammar question using a search engine; I often do. Even our word processing software has a built-in grammar checker. All of those tools involve some kind of AI.

Of course, AI in communication has negative impacts:

• The majority of newspapers, including The New York Times, have dropped their copy desks and laid off proofreaders and copyeditors.

• Some colleges do not require proofreading or copyediting classes for journalism or marketing majors.

• Many writers do not care about typos and unclear sentences as long as the writers can get their basic message out.

I’ve been involved with words for my entire education and career, and I like the thought of an AI proofreader as a coworker in my writing and editing. It doesn’t replace me, but it lets me focus more on higher-level writing and editing tasks.

What got me thinking about this subject was this: I have recently signed up with Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) to have AI produce audiobook versions of my novels. KDP gave me 46 voices to choose from, enabled me to preview the whole recording, and made the audiobook very easy to produce. It’s not perfect, but the production quality is pretty darn good. Plus, I would never have the resources to produce this on my own. And I am reaching a new audiobook-listening audience.

However, I feel guilty that I am taking jobs away from voice actors and production companies. And the AI-produced audiobook does not have the same quality as that of a professionally read and produced book.

On the other hand, there’s the old arguments that cars replaced the horse and buggy and calculators replaced the slide rule—ostensibly for humanity’s betterment.

So, what do you think? Should we remain Luddites, with the benefit of quality, albeit expensive quality? Should we embrace everything about AI, which may save money and open us up to new and different types of jobs but which may decrease creativity? Or should we balance both? For now, I tend to be a middle-roader on the subject. Please share your thoughts. And check out the newsletter series of my friend and colleague Eryn Travis, PhD, which examines the nuances of AI in communication and how they impact meaning.

Also, if you haven’t done so already, please leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads for any of the books in the Vacation Friends Romance series. Although even reviews can be AI generated, I still like seeing the real thing—and it helps in sales in some way that my slide-rule brain doesn’t quite understand.

Thanks to Linda, who recently read and reviewed all four books in record time!