I have been actively avoiding this topic for a simple reason: I am a science fiction author who works as a programmer. Basically, I hold two conflicting views inside my head, both of which have weighted points. As a web developer with a decades-long career, I cannot help but be cautiously excited about the untapped power of AI (artificial intelligence). But, I can also see the pitfalls. And as an author, I cannot help but feel demotivated by the ease in which AI can replicate my work. But, I can also see the potential.

In short: my thoughts are muddied. I see pros and cons from every side.

This is why I lack a firm stance on the subject. I have pondered AI from multiple angles and it continues to plague my headspace. It’s a vexing topic to unpack, so I’ll do my best to muse on what I see as a tech professional with an active authorship. I think I am in a unique position to speak rationally on the matter without coming across as alarmist or fanatical.

So with that in mind, let’s dive into the muck.

As a programmer …

I have worked in tech for three decades. I earned my computer degree before Y2K. I was a teenage student when Arpanet became the Internet. I watched the birth of Google, Napster, MySpace, Facebook, Amazon, all of the seismic tech shifts that directly impacted our lives.

But nothing, and I mean nothing, prepared me for the earthquake that was AI.

The tech world has been discussing AI for years. It’s nothing new and we all saw it coming. The first iterations were interesting, but far from game-changing. And then ChatGPT got good. Like, shockingly good to the point of existential discomfort. This sparked a massive gold rush that is still ongoing. Every major tech firm is scrambling for their piece of the pie.

Yes, we saw it coming. But no, we did not expect it to be as good as it is.

I have experienced two awe-inspiring moments in my tech career. The first was back in the 90s, when I created a dynamic web page that served content from a database. Everything is about to change, I thought to myself. And it did. The second came recently, when I delved into ChatGPT-4. Everything is about to change, I thought to myself again. And it’s going to.

Most people are still looking at AI as a “fresh tech,” i.e. a novel tool, something to choose. But it’s not. What you are witnessing is the birth of Internet 2.0. This is a full paradigm shift, in that the current model is now obsolete. This is also why the public discourse is wildly off-base. The fears are warranted, but the major failing is a lack of imagination.

As a simple example, consider AI-generated art. The current tools can create stylized images and photo-real pictures in seconds. Admittedly, it’s astounding to behold. This has already upended the design industry because AI is just too cheap and easy to use. Mitigating cost is Business 101. Why go through an expensive design process when you can bypass it entirely? And that’s what countless businesses are doing. Even if the quality suffers, the time and cost savings are too great to ignore.

The problem then becomes one of scale. AI has become the hardest working artist on the planet. It’s generating a tidal wave of content that gets recirculated into the pool in which it learns. Thus, we now have an ouroboros problem (a snake eating itself). In ten years, who will be able to distinguish between real and fake? The line is already blurred and the tech is only improving. AI continues to pollute its own waters with fake content that the average person consumes without question. It then reuses the fake content to create more fake content. It’s like a JPEG image degrading with every save. The core integrity has been lost forever.

We have officially entered the Matrix where reality is unreality. And this isn’t even touching the nefarious side of fraud, scams, phishing, hacking, malware, deep-fakes, political unrest, etc. We live in a world today where a clever dissident in a basement can start a war with a laptop. Now imagine the landscape ten, twenty, even thirty years from now. My entire life is built around tech literacy and even I worry about the influx. It’s why I work hard to stay healthy, because I realize that critical knowledge is being polluted. I do not want to rely on a medical system that has been actively hijacked by unreality.

And this all assumes that we don’t reach AGI (artificial general intelligence). For anyone needing an explanation, that’s when Skynet goes online.

As an author …

It’s hard enough to make sense out of this as a coder. But as an author, it’s nigh impossible. Imagine devoting an entire year of your life to creating, editing, and publishing a novel. And then, out of nowhere, a new technology drops into your lap that can do it in seconds.

And for free. And it’s good.

AI-generated stories are not great (yet), but the writing is on the wall. Right now, I can ask ChatGPT to write a new novel in an established series and it will finish before I can take the next sip of coffee. From there, all I have to worry about is a content edit because the AI has already handled spelling, grammar, and structure.

That’s the new reality of publishing. I am proud of what I have accomplished up to this point, but to be honest, the raw power of AI has severely wounded my motivation.

I now see my writing career as a time capsule. Everything I have produced up to this point has been timestamped as pre-AI. I can still make the valid claim that every word I published was conceived inside my head and typed by my fingers. But from this point on, no writer can make that claim. Not saying it can’t be valid, just recognizing that readers are also post-AI. They have been trained to wonder, “Was this actually written?” And mark my words, that will be the go-to critique in reviews going forward. “Terrible book, probably AI-generated.”

So yeah, it’s hard not to throw in the towel when staring into the void. But, and this is a very big but, AI could actually save the broken publishing industry. How? Because the biggest hurdle for authors has always been the gatekeepers.

It’s all fine and dandy to bypass agents in favor of indie publishing, but authors still face a daunting slog through advertising and distribution. We have now reached a point where authors can, in theory, be their own distributors. AI gives us the tools to create platforms of scale, i.e. direct competition to the big publishers. Amazon has always been hostile towards authors, but now authors can create their own Amazon. It’s a tantalizing idea. Self-publishing opened the floodgates, but AI may nuke the dam.

As for myself, Zachry Wheeler the Human Author may have run its course. But, Captain Zeedub the Amazon Slayer may be gearing up for battle.

As a regular dude …

And then there’s me, the middle-aged coder who wrote some books. But now I’m tired. I have toiled inside the creative grind for three decades. I clawed my way through several industries, everything from music to movies to publishing. At some point, I have to pick an off-ramp and be happy with the destination. And in that regard, AI may prove to be the creative death I have been waiting for.

As a closing note, do you remember the opening scene of Back to the Future? It’s when Marty goes through the long process of powering up a giant guitar amp. And then, a single strum destroys the system and blasts him into the rear couch. That’s what writing feels like at the moment. All those dials were book launches, events, promos, mailers, the collective hum of a successful authorship. And then the release of AI was the strum of destruction. I’m now dazed and battered, wondering what the hell happened and where to go from here. And much like Marty, all my brain can muster is a bewildered “whoa.”

So yeah, it’s a strange place to be. Many of my author friends are in “sky is falling” panic mode. Conversely, many of my coder friends are in “praise be to our new AI overlords” worship mode. And here I sit in the middle, somewhere between shock and awe. I am nodding with sympathy, sighing with annoyance, and staring into the future with an eyebrow raised.

AI is a mega-bomb of disruption that has detonated inside the tech sphere, and we have no idea what the fallout will bring. Some things will be great, some things will be terrible, some things will cease being things, and some things will redefine what a “thing” actually is.

Strap in, folks. Things are about to get weird.