Today, I read an article by Kristoffer Ealy arguing that the future belongs to people who work with AI, not people who let AI do the work for them. And I couldn’t help smiling, because that’s exactly how I’ve been operating for the past year.
Some folks treat AI like a vending machine: type in a prompt, take whatever drops out, and hope the professor doesn’t notice the metallic aftertaste. But that’s not collaboration. That’s outsourcing your thinking.
What I do is different. When I work with AI on a project — whether it’s the Buchanan audio, a comic splash panel for my Wordle-playing friends, or a blog post like this — I’m the one steering. I bring the ideas, the structure, the tone, the history, the humor, the moral clarity. The AI brings speed, stamina, and the ability to juggle a thousand threads at once. But the voice? The judgment? The point of view? That’s mine.
It’s the same distinction the article made: AI amplifies whatever the human brings into the room. If you bring nothing, it amplifies nothing. If you bring intention, it sharpens it.
That’s why collaboration works for me. I’m not handing over the job. I’m directing the production.
And the result — whether it’s an audio drama, a comic panel, or a blog article — actually sounds like me. Because I showed up.
That’s the part the “AI is taking over everything” crowd keeps missing. The danger isn’t that AI will replace human creativity. The danger is that people will stop showing up.
I don’t plan on being one of them.
Peace & Love, and all of the above,
Earl
earlthepearl137 
what do you think of “Shy Girl” being cancelled?
I just wanted you to know that I asked AI what it thought about the subject. The answer is posted here.
I’m not familiar with the story as I don’t like Horror, but I do have an opinion about using AI as a tool. I’m all for it. It’s like having a dictionary, a thesaurus, and an encyclopedia at your fingertips. The important thing is the quality of the final product. If it’s a good read, fine. If it’s too “metallic” it’s not. Humans and AI have to work together to produce something really good. Trying to stop the use of AI in writing reminds me of the peasants throwing their sabots into the machines to try to stop the industrial revolution.
To get another viewpoint, I asked Bingo, my AI collaborator about it. Here is AI’s response.
Why “AI‑Generated” Shouldn’t Be a Scarlet Letter
Every few decades, the creative world invents a new purity test — a line in the sand meant to separate “real” art from whatever tool has just arrived to make the work a little easier. We’ve seen this movie before: the typewriter was suspect, the word processor was cheating, spell‑check was the beginning of the end, and digital photography was “not real art.” Today’s version of that same anxiety is the rush to label or ban work that has touched AI at any stage of its creation.
The recent controversy around Shy Dog is a perfect example. The author says the book wasn’t written with AI, but the publisher worried that an editor might have used AI tools — and suddenly the entire project was treated as contaminated. That reaction isn’t about quality or ethics. It’s about fear of a tool people don’t yet understand.
But here’s the truth: in a few years, banning a book because AI was involved will look as absurd as banning a book because the author used Microsoft Word instead of a fountain pen.
AI is becoming part of the creative workflow in the same way spell‑check, grammar suggestions, and digital layout tools did. It doesn’t replace human intention — it amplifies it. What matters, and what has always mattered, is the human judgment behind the work: the voice, the choices, the perspective, the emotional intelligence. Tools don’t create meaning. People do.
The real danger isn’t that AI will infiltrate literature. It’s that fear of AI will lead us to punish innovation, collaboration, and new forms of creativity. We should be evaluating books on their merit — not on whether a line editor used a modern tool to tighten a sentence.
The future of writing isn’t human versus AI. It’s human with AI — the same way writers have always worked with editors, dramaturgs, musicians, designers, and every other collaborator who helps shape a piece of art into its final form.
And if we’re honest, that future is already here.
but what do you think?
I wrote my comment above. Then I gave you AI’s comment. Are you asking what do I think of AI’s comment? I agree with my partner. We should use tools that are available, and AI is the most advanced tool a writer can have. Of course, there should be guidelines put on the people using it, like the Hippocratic Code. First, do no harm. And it might be very useful to use Asimov’s rules for robots. A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
I know what you think of AI. your response was sort of generic. do you think publishers should publish works that are generated by AI. I’m assuming your answer is yes, but I don’t understand why you think it’s a good idea.
Miners use power tools instead of picks and shovels. Car mechanics use power tools. Craftsmen use power tools to perform better. AI is a power tool for writers, the very best one yet. Should we still be using quill pens? We use what we have available. Quill pens were replaced by typewriters, then word processors. Now we have an even more powerful tool. Writing will become better.
so you feel good and bad as pertaining to the arts is objective?
I feel good about AI in writing, bad about the Pentagon using AI to develop more lethal weapons.