AI and Authors: A Spectrum of Controversy
Episode 83
AI is changing the way authors write, but is every use of AI created equal? From researching to generating the words on the page, AI has entered nearly every stage of a writer’s life. But is using AI inherently unethical, or does the answer depend on what you’re asking it to do? In this episode of Authors Talking Bookish, we examine a spectrum of controversy surrounding the use of AI in order to help you determine where you stand.
SHOW NOTES:
The Spectrum of AI Adoptions: Research vs. Marketing vs. Writing vs. Brainstorming
Research (High Acceptance)
Marketing & Administration (High Acceptance)
A New Complication: AI as search engine
Drafting & Prose (Controversial)
Ethical Friction: Who owns the training material?
Author vs. AI Accusations: High-Profile Book Cancellations
Detecting AI Use
Final Ethical Questions: Where We Stand
The Spectrum of AI Adoptions: Research vs. Marketing vs. Writing vs. Brainstorming
Is this a black or white issue?
Who determines what is & is not ethical?
Research (High Acceptance)
Several writers view AI as a research assistant. They use it to find historical facts, explore potential settings, answer simple questions, generate plot outlines or overcome writer’s block. It’s often compared to using a thesaurus or search engine like Google.
Question: Where is the line between AI helping you think and AI doing the thinking for you?
Marketing & Administration (High Acceptance)
AI as Utility: Like using Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, AI can become a virtual writer’s assistant keeping track of the day-to-day business side of being a writer such as storing contacts, managing email campaigns, automating tasks, etc.
AI as a promotional tool: Some authors use it to compose promotional material such as newsletters, emails, social media, etc.
A New Complication: AI as search engine
AI has become a new search engine for readers to find books. The danger is the AI models prioritize popular or “safe” books, possibly creating an echo chamber that makes it harder for niche authors who have a smaller following to begin with to be discovered. If the AI decides what a reader wants, the author’s challenge becomes convincing the model, not a human, of their value. This becomes particularly difficult for indie authors.
The role of author must shift from creator to metadata manager. If AI (like ChatGPT, Claude, etc) becomes the primary way for readers to find new books, authors must learn to write for the algorithm rather than just the reader. This involves keyword density, optimizing book descriptions so AI can accurately category the themes, tones and genre of the author’s work.
Authors will need to start marketing to the algorithm instead of the reader.
Reader Views recommends indie authors put out a press release to make their books easier to find, as readers are going to AI to curate TBD lists based on reader preferences.
Drafting & Prose (Controversial)
This is where the controversy peaks. If AI is used to generate the actual prose, questions of authorship and originality arise. The debate here is whether writing is a process (thinking through words) or a product (the final story). If a writer uses AI for the product, they risk being accused of undermining the human labor in creating stories–not to mention the loss of jobs (editors, proofreaders…)
High-Profile authors who admit to using AI:
Some authors, like Anthony Horowitz, advocate for using AI strictly as a research tool saying it was a “wonderful friend” for gathering information. But he says he would never use it to generate actual prose.
Ethical Friction: Who owns the training material?
This is a contentious legal and moral battle.
The “Scanning” Conflict: Companies scanning books without permission is a violation of intellectual property and potential economic replacement. Many authors argue that training AI on their life’s work without compensation is essentially theft.
The “Education” Counter Argument: Some argue this falls under “transformative use.” They compare AI learning to a human student reading a library book to learn how to structure a storyline and storytelling, not copying the content itself.
Author’s Guild brought a class action lawsuit against AI for this very reason.
“The plaintiffs’ brief argues that ‘OpenAI’s GPT models pose an existential threat to those who write and publish books.’ The brief describes how, since the release of ChatGPT, “a torrent of AI-generated books of all types” has started flooding the market, threatening to “’substitute’ for the creations of authors.” Not only did OpenAI feed plaintiffs’ books to its models so that the models can regurgitate and create derivatives of the works with simple prompts by anyone in the world, but it also initially downloaded the books from pirate websites and quite literally ‘built the foundations of its business on mass piracy.’”
Author vs. AI Accusations: High-Profile Book Cancellations
There have been two major book projects pulled from publication due to suspicions of AI in the writing process.
Call Me, I’ll Hide the Body by Jerry Falade. It was her debut novel which had secured a $2 million auction offer. It was pulled by his own agents after they could no longer verify the manuscript’s origin or confirm it wasn’t written by AI.
Shy Girl by Mia Ballard from Hachette. They canceled this novel in the US and pulled existing copies in the UK after they conducted an internal review of the text.
Author vs. AI Accusations: High-Profile Book Cancellations
Shy Girl by Mia Ballard
Call Me, I’ll Hide the Body, by Jerry Falade,
Detecting AI
Current methods (grammarly, ZeroGPT, Quillbot, Copyleaks–both paid and unpaid versions) for detecting AI in writing are highly controversial and unreliable
Stylistic patterns (grammatically clean writing, em dash use, overly verbose, repetitive words and devices) and the problem with using them as evidence
Should authors be accused without the ability to prove it? Is a clause in a contract enough?
Final Ethical Questions: Where We Stand
Is there a difference between using an AI tool to check grammar (which is standard) and using one to generate a character arc (which is controversial)?
If your book is used to train an AI, should you have to agree? Should you be compensated? How would that even be calculated?
Does writing change when the audience is potentially an AI that summaries the book for a reader, rather than the reader actually reading the book themselves?
If AI is used in every part of the process, will authors become extinct/irrelevant
Where do we rate on the scale?
SOURCES & LINKS
Why The Press Release Isn’t Dead, Reader Views, July 2026
AI Optimization for Authors, Author Media, May 2025
Anthropic Destroyed Millions of Print Books to Build its AI Models, ARS Technica, June 2025
Authors Guild and Plaintiffs File Motion for Summary Judgement v. Open AI and Microsoft, The Authors Guild, September 2026
$2M Crime Novel Deal Collapses Amid Questions over AI Use, Emma Loffhagen, The Guardian, July 2026
A New York Times Op Ed , Andrea Bartz, March 2026
The Authors Who Admit to Using AI: “I have absolutely no shame about it,” Annabel Nugent, The Independent, June 2026
Authors Talking Bookish https://www.authorstalkingbookish.com
Hope Gibbs, author of Where the Grass Grows Blue https://www.authorhopegibbs.com/
Donna Norman-Carbone, author of All That is Sacred & Of Lies and Honey https://www.donnanormancarbone.com
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