The Trouble with AI in Creative Spaces

There’s something increasingly troubling happening in the creative space when it comes to AI. I’m not the first person to point it out, and I won’t be the last. I worry that perhaps not many people will care as AI continues to integrate itself into the fabric of society.

I read my share of discourse on AI from time to time, but a recent article in the New York Times triggered a slew of emotions in me and many of my fellow Rowan Prose authors. The article details the schemes of “authors” using AI to generate novels for mass consumption and, naturally, mass profit, focusing heavily on “author Coral Hart”.

I use those quotation marks for a couple of reasons, one being more obvious than the other. Coral Hart is one of many pen names for this exploiter, who is a major proponent of using AI to generate romance novels. In the article, she admits to using it to generate (I’m specifically using this word and avoiding the word “create”) more than 200 romance novels last year, which collectively sold roughly 50,000 copies. All in all, she made six figures from her efforts.

She doesn’t stop there. Aside from generating AI books, she also leverages her “knowledge” by teaching others how birth a book from prompts. She’s even gearing up to charge people between $80 and $250 a month to use her proprietary AI writing program to generate books in under an hour by inputting an outline.

How does she feel about all of this? This quote from her sums it up.

“If I can generate a book a day, and you need six months to write a book, who’s going to win the race?”

A Calculated Crutch

It’s disappointing to see how AI has evolved since it first became mainstream. I remember my first exposure to generative AI while I was working at a marketing firm.

At the time, I thought it was funny to watch the machine generate lyrics for a hypothetical firm theme song in the style of Limp Bizkit or Taylor Swift. It made many of my coworkers eager to play around with it further, reminiscent of the days when Facebook first launched, and we couldn’t pull our eyes from the screen.

I saw, and still see, AI as a tool for making certain processes more efficient, such as compiling data into a spreadsheet or curating a list of addresses from already established data. I guess not everyone shares that opinion.

Today, many people are using AI to expedite the creative process and infiltrate an expressive landscape without any sense of agency. Those who exploit these tools spout similar rhetoric as Hart, calling themselves “authors” without any appreciation for the journey or creative bandwidth. Some draw comparisons to calculators, claiming AI is akin to that tool when it comes to generating (there’s that word again) art.

"AI, generate me in the front row of American Family...nevermind...I'll just go take a picture there instead."

These people miss the point. Let’s debunk the calculator example. A grade school student will initially learn how to solve equations without a calculator. Eventually, a teacher might incorporate a calculator into their lessons, especially as equations get more complicated. The students already have a knowledge base for solving problems without a calculator and can now use it to tackle difficult problems.

Now, AI “authors” might counter by saying, “See, they are saving time on those larger problems with a calculator, just like I’m saving time on (generating) a novel. Same thing.” Here’s the difference. If a student with a solid math foundation is asked to solve a problem without a calculator, they often can do it, though it’ll likely take longer.

Now take an AI “author” and give them a typewriter (or a laptop without an Internet connection). You know what would happen, right? And that’s the point.

Replicating Mediocrity

I understand that trying to alter the perspective of heavy AI users, especially those who use it for generating books, is a futile exercise. They don’t see a problem with it. They see transactions and a fruitful business model. Their endgame is to make money as fast and efficiently as possible, the method be damned.

In today’s world, society praises speed and efficiency. There is merit in some of it. It’s wonderful to FaceTime a friend and see them in high definition without lag or to order on an app and have food ready within minutes. But that praise bleeds into the wrong markets.

Creativity is unique. It can flow freely and effortlessly some days or leave you blankly staring at your screen or canvas for an hour. But because our society values speed and efficiency, it doesn’t appreciate the nuance of creativity and instead rewards “art” based on how fast it can be churned out. How else do you explain Hart’s “success” as an “author”? How else would it be possible for AI “authors” to infiltrate the creative marketplace?

No AI was used for generating this image. That lightsaber really looks that good in person.

If these users didn’t generate enough revenue, they’d stop using AI for this purpose. But if something makes money, regardless of the means, it’ll continue to happen repeatedly.

In Hart’s case, she’s not only generating books. She’s selling advice and the tools to replicate her “success”. And thus, she not only pulls in funds from AI books but also from her advice and AI platform. If it wasn’t valuable or viable, people wouldn’t use it. Sadly, she doesn’t appear to have any trouble bringing people on board with her methods. And those people will follow her lead and flood the market with more AI-generated books, unbothered by their impact in diluting the creative pool for the sake of profit.

I wish they cared, but money talks, as they say, and today it screams: “If I can generate a book in a day, and you need six months to write a book, who’s going to win the race?”

Bypassing Expression

The New York Times article highlights another “author”. Sonia Rompoti states she started using AI in 2024 to generate novels about plus-size heroines. Her “efforts” led her to generate 10 books in a little over a year. Her “journey” wasn’t easy, however.

Rompoti details her struggle with using AI, claiming it doesn’t describe plus-size women well. The article cites one potential reason—AI is trained on mainstream fiction, which doesn’t have many plus-sized main characters. Rompoti wasn’t fond of AI exaggerating someone’s mass, such as by using phrases like “a chair groaned when she sat down.”

How did she remedy this? She revised those parts to ground her main character in reality. In her words, “People don’t read romance to see what bodies do. They read it to feel seen.”

What I see when I read that is the inside of my palms as my face connects with them. Such irony. If Rompoti wanted to give readers a female lead who functions as a real person, perhaps she should create that character from her headspace and experiences. Imagine the depths she could explore if she could only reach inside her mind. Perhaps that’s a reach, because she’s clearly reaching into a well of everyone else’s work to stitch together a heroine and call it hers.

Pun jokes aside, this further emphasizes the problem with AI’s usage in this space. It comes down to the creator’s expression. What is art if not creative expression? AI doesn’t create anything; it’s a generator. You give it a prompt, and it pulls from a scrap heap of already established work to generate something.

Rompoti could create her own plus-size heroines, but she chooses not to. Why? Only she knows that answer, but I suspect it has something to do with valuing money over creative expression. That, and why write when writing is hard?

Light at the end of the AI tunnel? Maybe? Hopefully?

I don’t say all of this with ill intent. I don’t know Hart or Rompoti, but their actions dilute the playing field. Some authors will further dilute it when they reluctantly turn to AI, and others will jump in with full catalogs of AI slop.

That’s what hurts as a newly minted author who dreamed of seeing his name on a novel since childhood. So much went into my journey to arrive at this destination. Learning how to compose sentences in grade school. Reading book after book and seeing the visuals in my mind, and then learning how to describe it in my own work. Hours upon hours of late-night writing sessions. Seeking advice from others about the publishing world, agents, queries, synopses, and pitches. And rejections. So, so many rejections.

That’s not to say my journey should be everyone else’s. It’s unique to me. But I’m thankful for that journey because it taught me so much along the way, and I still have plenty to learn.

AI-generated books, however, lack the one thing AI can’t replicate—soul. Many of these “authors” are banking on AI becoming so good that no one will be able to detect it in the future. Why would someone want that? Don’t readers want unique voices in the creative landsc—oh, nevermind. Money. That’s right. They want that because it’ll make it easier to make money.

I guess if that’s all that truly matters on this spinning blue ball in the middle of a vast, obsidian sea, then generate away. Call yourself an “author” as you sit through a Q&A and dissect your creative process. How riveting.

A Tinge of Hope

When looking at the situation as an author, it’s difficult to see the bright side. What merit is there in choosing not to use AI in your creative process? By the time it took me to write this, Hart likely generated two additional “books” for her ever-expanding “catalog”. Why not follow her lead and learn how to write prompts instead of prose?

Because I’m not worried about the size of my catalog. I’m not driven solely by money. Yes, I enjoy the compensation Legend Has It provides me, but that wasn’t the driving force behind its creation.

I had a story to tell, and I used my experiences and creative capacity to tell it. No prompts. No AI. Just my own hardwired circuitry. And I’ll use that again as I create more stories to share with readers in the future.

Because I have faith that readers don’t crave artificial output. There are enough artificial things in this world as it is. As humans, one of our base needs is connection. We crave it, and one way to obtain it is through creative expression.

The optimist in me hopes that in a sea of superficial slop, authentic expression will rise above it. People will grow tired of regurgitated amalgamations of stories and yearn for something unique. They’ll shun stories designed to sell for stories that resonate. They'll gravitate toward something real because the human experience is real.

The world will keep spinning, and AI “authors” will keep generating content. Amidst it all, you’ll know where to find me. It might be at a coffee shop or a park bench. Perhaps poolside or my writing nook. Wherever it is, this much will be true.

I’ll keep creating.