Writers voice anxiety about using AI. Readers don’t seem to care [Video]

What does it mean for a writer, such as a novelist, to have a unique “voice”? And does artificial intelligence (AI) help or hurt that voice? 

Microsoft researchers set out to answer that question with a small study using 19 fiction writers, 30 readers, and short passages written with the help of OpenAI’s GPT-4. The research takes its title from a comment by one of the writers — “it was 80% me, 20% AI.” 

Also: 5 ways ChatGPT can help you write essays

What prompted the study are “concerns that vast transformations of the writer economy are likely underway” as a result of generative AI, writes lead author Angel Hsing-Chi Hwang of the University of Southern California, who collaborated with five scholars from Microsoft Research Montréal. For an author, “authenticity often determines the value of their work, which co-writing with AI might potentially threaten,” the researchers say. 

To better understand what “authenticity” means, Hwang and colleagues …