Learning first AI-d

I’ve had a good week — I signed a book contract — but there was one part of one conversation that was miserable and I keep thinking about it. A writer nearing the end of her university course asked me about joining the Writers’ Guild and at one point said that emerging writers who do not use AI are at a disadvantage, I think even that they are left behind. Now, that reads as if she were arguing in favour of AI and she was not at all. She was asking about it because this is how the industry looks to her at the moment, how it’s being presented to her. But what this looks to me is that she’s been listening to an AI evangelist. There are still a lot of these, and that’s not even including people who sell AI. There are so many people who have invested so much of themselves in this bullshit that they have to say it’s the way things are and that you’d better join in because otherwise you’re never going to get any work as a (insert job title here). It helps if these people are not writers…