In Sept. 2020,The Guardianpublished an opinion piece written by a program.
Are you scared yet, human?
Indeed, it is a scary time to be a professional writer.
Earlier in 2020, Microsoftlaid off journalists to replace them with a writing AI.
Our research team at the University of British Columbia investigated what the rise of AI means to human writers.
We interviewed seven hobbyists and 13 professional writers, using a design fiction approach.
We first showed the writers different speculative designs of futuristic AI writers.
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These personal values being: emotional values and productivity.
The writers attributed three different kinds of emotional values to writing.
Others just enjoyed the process of turning their ideas into words.
By contrast, for professional writers, writing was a means of living.
The professional writers envisioned themselves using AI as a ghostwriter who could realize their ideas into written pieces.
To some extent, professional writers were willing to compromise their emotional values in exchange for productivity.
Writing with AI can leave writers with energy and time for the creative side of the writing process.
Ideally, our entrepreneurial drive would notcompletely displace humans from our creative endeavors.
