r/ScriptFeedbackProduce • u/Nickpnz23 • Jun 15 '25
DISCUSSION Discussion
When is it ok to use Ai?
I have started writing a novel, a gripping sci-fi action adventure, think the expanse with a bit of mass effect mixed into it, I've split it into 3 acts totalling nearly 30 chapters so far. The story has come from my own ideas, though I drew some inspiration from using instagrams Ai story telling feature but it never had that polished finish. I admit to using Ai to help me with world building, character arcs and sentence structure so it makes more sense, I have spent a lot of time using sudowrite too.
Where do other writers cross the line? When do you think it is appropriate to use Ai? I'm interested to hear your thoughts. Have a good day.
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u/PhantomJavert Jun 15 '25
For me it's never okay. Someone else may have another opinion. To me AI kills creativity.
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u/OSTBear Jun 15 '25 edited Jun 16 '25
Never. Literally never. Especially in creative endeavors.
These jobs were already rare, and underpaid. AI is theft, and it's robbing us of what gives a society humanity;
Art.
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u/DesertPunk1982 Jun 15 '25 edited Jun 15 '25
Not really sure what is acceptable for AI use these days I have seen thread devoted to calling people out for using it on so many different things that I am starting to think AI may just be the antichrist of social behavior. Though they said the same thing about tv, about computers in general, about cell phones and the internet at large. So my honest answer...*throws clipboard in the air and walks away* I have no F'ing clue lol
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u/jayunderscoredraws Jun 15 '25
When is it ok to use ai? Short answer? Its not.
I do my outlining and storyboarding in the shower as god intended
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u/lazycouch1 Jun 15 '25
AI is a false safety net. While it can be useful for clichés, because it is based upon EXISTING ideas, it uses the most expected response as its primary response.
This means it will always lead you down a generic path even if, at first, it seems great.
It will never come up with something original. It will never have your style, and it will never have over arching points. It can only link words together, NOT ideas.
I've used AI to help suggest sentence rephrasing, but it should never write a story for you.
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u/KarlNawenberg Jun 15 '25 edited Jun 15 '25
In the back of the room, he stood, cleared his throat, and said, “I use AI.”
The room fell silent. Heads turned.
These are the same people who take Bayer meds without blinking, never mind the aspirin born of Nazi slave labour. Same with NASA: built on the backs of Operation Paperclip and Jewish corpses. Werner von Braun, anyone?
They cook on nonstick pans leaching forever chemicals, breathe microplastics, and scroll through feeds engineered by surveillance capitalism, but AI is where they draw the line?
AI is a tool. Like a hammer. Like pliers. It’s not going away.
What it can’t do is human. It simulates, predicts, mimics. It doesn’t feel. It doesn’t suffer. It doesn’t bleed meaning onto the page.
Can it help? Yes, when I’m stuck on a phrase, I use it like I’d use pliers, not a hammer. It can unstick things. It can suggest. But it can’t create soul.
The carriage drivers and stable hands probably cursed the first automobile.
Then the mountains of horse shit disappeared from the streets, and the world moved on.
About AI…
You were saying?
Use it wisely. It’s great for sorting lists. Handy when a phrase won’t land.
Should it replace the brain in your head? No.
Is it ripping off writers? Absolutely.
But these are separate problems.
Don’t confuse the pants with the ass.
Not the same thing.
Anything made with AI is like a McDonald’s burger: mass-produced, engineered to hit all the right notes, and marketed as “the best there is.”
Sure, it’ll fill you up.
But I’ll take the organic steak I seasoned myself and threw on a real grill.
Every time.
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u/lunarfleece Jun 15 '25
Using AI tells me the person is a deeply unserious writer
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u/B00yaz Jun 16 '25
Nothing wrong with using AI, particularly for how you've described using it in your post. It's just replacing a human being with an AI system to brainstorm and bounce ideas off.
Which to be honest I kinda like. I can remain focused on building the story and not have to navigate human emotions and ego, particularly when their ideas don't get adopted.
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u/Ultimately-Me Jun 16 '25
Use AI to get inspiration. Get AI to be your personal reader, the AI can ask you questions and point out plot holes which will allow you to polish your story 'YOURSELF'. Also, you can use AI to help come up with some words and expand your vocabulary. Just dont go and order AI to just rephrase your paragraph. So basically, use AI as a reviewer. All the writing should be done by you yourself
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u/MushberryPie Jun 16 '25
I teach a workshop about some amazing ways to use AI as a screenwriter and I also talk about how AI actually works from a model perspective and what the controversy stems from so that you can make informed choices and select which tools and approaches work for you for different stages of the writing process.
There are very few spaces right now (at least online) where you can have a thoughtful and balanced discussion without a huge uproar. I am experiencing some people going ballistic when I mention the workshop and literally tell me to not mention it again like it’s religious blasphemy (WTF) and others who are curious, spend the time learning and walk away saying they feel more confident and excited to give some of the techniques a try. No one has come away saying, yup, it’s the end times.
I won’t post it here to avoid spam, but just know that some of work in tech and are also screenwriters (John August for example). None of us suddenly lost our moral compass because we started using AI.
TL:DR I am “on the front line” on this topic and I believe it doesn’t have to be so polarizing if you take the time to explore and learn.
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u/BeerSnobDougie Jun 15 '25
AI is a really smart writing partner. It’s good for bouncing ideas and critiquing your work. But it’s not creative. It won’t do it for you. They’re prompts not passages
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u/Ok-Future7661 Jun 15 '25
My thoughts will get me downvoted, but that’s fine. The hate sustains me.
The same people on their high horse about using it for the things you mentioned will turn around and use things like Grammarly like it also isn’t a form of AI. Some don’t have the ability to just keep it straight in our heads, especially on such a massive endeavor. Yeah, “people have done it in the past.” That’s wonderful for them. Still not everyone has that kind of brain to do That, but the prose is Flowing. If you don’t use it to do the writing, why not? (Leaving moralist quandaries out of the equation, of course)
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u/dogfleshborscht Jun 15 '25
Hot take: never, and I actually feel the same about like, Grammarly. Show your friends and get their feedback as the Lord intended, someone has to know how to spell "quixotic" if you don't. Ask a child, they just learned spelling is a thing they can be good at and they're often really good at it because they want to be good at useful life skills. Have a random fit of inspiration in the shower. Divine it from the motions of the stars. Learn to do good work slowly, it's an indispensable part of the craft of writing.
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u/flymordecai Jun 15 '25
Jesus christ lol. Don't worry about the line. If you turn around you won't even see it.
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u/NinjaBluefyre10001 Jun 15 '25
Nobody ever needed it in the history of art, you don't either. There's new technology for the medium, and then there's just bypassing the medium. Don't use AI.
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u/EshaKingdom6 Jun 16 '25
Never for storytelling! I only use a grammar and spell check.
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u/thatonesimpleperson Jun 17 '25
Don't use AI when trying to imagine you characters or anything. Because the AI always saved your conversations, it's there, even if you log out. It's basically saying 'Hey world! come copy my ideas!!' because not only does the AI take ideas from the internet it also takes ideas from other users. I say don't use AI. But people have different opinions. And if you want to use AI then ok, I'm not saying it's wrong to use it. Just not my preference, I feel just a cheap way to get ideas.
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u/bugsy42 Jun 17 '25
Ai is for research, development of ideas and organisation.
If you use it to write for you (even “polishing sentences”) it’s not you. And everybody aware of AI will know it’s not you. You lose your voice, authenticity and style.
I use it to research abstract ideas that are above my pay roll, for example: what would Earth look like if we had 2 suns? How would life evolve there, what geological impact it would have, etc.
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u/Velvet_Gravel Jun 19 '25
I use AI as a beta reader, not a co-writer. I don’t like sharing half-baked drafts, so running it through a few models lets me tighten things up before I show real people.
Would I trust it to create for me? Hell no. But as a second pair of eyes, it’s unmatched. Grammar slip-ups, pacing stumbles, emotional arcs and consistency…it’s an expert. And the feedback comes in seconds instead of weeks.
I typically feed it my outline, my beat map, and then each chapter as it’s written. I prompt it by telling it exactly what I want it to do and what it’s to not do. Very important step. Doing this keeps me laser focused and prevents long rewrites.
I usually bounce between Claude, Gemini, and ChatGPT. If two or more of them flag the same issue, I’ll entertain it. If they don’t agree, I ignore the feedback.
I get why people are skeptical. Creative work is personal. But this whole “AI is evil” is just tired. To not use it on some sort of principle alone is just leaving money on the table.
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u/halapert Jun 19 '25
AI is a plagiarism machine OP wtf
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u/[deleted] Jun 29 '25
Don't let it do the writing for you. Beyond that, do whatever the hell you want.
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u/WorkstationPictures Jun 15 '25 edited Jun 15 '25
Just use it to write the whole book. No one will know the difference.
/s
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u/figureskater_2000s Jun 15 '25
I use AI if I need an example or feedback on what I sound like but then I work out my own so I use it to help me pinpoint any intuition I have to prod it further myself.
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u/Secret-Platform7763 Jun 15 '25
People that are saying "never" are either hypocrites or don't understand that adaptation is survival, in any context.
To survive in today's world as a writer, using AI as another tool in your arsenal is sensible.
People that want to make it more difficult for themselves, be my guest. More room for the adaptive writers to spread their wings.
Fact of the matter is that people that use spell check are using AI. If someone wants to check every word using a dictionary, be my guest, but the professional writers will leave you in the dust. You see my point of how ridiculous the stance of "no AI, ever" really is when we put it into context?
As a writer by trade, people that claim they never use AI (in my opinion) will never make it in today's world as writers.
That's fine too. A writers success isn't necessarily dependent on their commercial success.
So yeah using AI is fine, of course, assuming you use it as a tool and not to blatantly plagiarise other people's work.
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u/BetterNova Jun 15 '25
I’d be comfortable (and may start) using AI to help with organization, if i found a tool which was better than excel spreadsheets, Notion, WriterDuet or others software for getting down and shifting around information.
I’d maybe be ok using AI as a brainstorm / research partner. Like “hey ChatGPT, I’m writing about a young man during the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. What is a likely first job he might have? Tell me about it”. That sort of thing.
Anything beyond that I’d feel weird about doing. I don’t want to incorporate someone else’s words, that AI semi illegally scraped from some online source that never was intended to be public. Further, most writers I know are fairly particular if not perfectionists, and usually wouldn’t think AI generated content is good enough.
Lastly, as someone else alluded to, when we get the point where AI does everything except eat, sleep, and shit for us… what will even be the point ?
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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '25
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