Writers everywhere are becoming increasingly anxious about the threat posed by Artificial Intelligence (AI), specifically large language models like Chat GPT. As ALCS launches its survey on AI and licensing, I spoke with writers across different genres about their current fears and hopes when it comes to AI.

VASEEM KHAN – crime novelist & Chair of the Crime Writers’ Association

I am a big believer in the power of tech – and AI – to positively transform the world. And yet I have stayed away from ChatGPT, simply because I also believe in the primacy of the human element in the creation of art.

The current unregulated and often unscrupulous use of authors’ works in training AI is, for me, a violation of every author’s basic right to be acknowledged and paid fairly for use of their intellectual property. The very least that organisations who use it can do is to compensate writers. For this to happen, governments must step in.

My hope is that most readers will view their relationship to literature – and authors – in the way that I do: that it is an intrinsically human activity which cannot be replicated by AI in a way that truly moves us. If an author I love wrote a book using AI, as a reader I would feel an immense sense of betrayal. The key is to ensure that our youngest – and techiest – readers fall in love with ‘real’ books.

RUTH AHMEDZAI KEMP – literary translator

I don’t believe that AI is going to take away my own work anytime soon but because AI models are improving all the time, it’s important that translators engage and experiment with them, so we know what we’re up against. We can then find ways to demonstrate the value that human translators bring to the task.

Literary translation is already very hard to earn a living from. So if publishers start to say: “we can use a machine for the first draft of this translation so we’re going to pay you less”; we have to resist that. As well as taking away income, it undermines the years of experience and expertise that translators bring to the table.

I worry too that automated translation is already removing the kind of basic translation work which provides valuable experience for translators just starting out. So it’s important to preserve these human training grounds for the literary translators of the future.

In certain circumstances, AI is actually helping people communicate; not everyone has access to an interpreter or a translator or has the means to pay for one. But I find it frustrating that publishers are using it for tasks where we already have excellent human translators.

LYDIA MONKS – children’s author and illustrator

As illustrators, we already feel undervalued in children’s publishing, but now we worry that our very existence in that industry is under threat. I think there is an overriding feeling of powerlessness and anxiety. However, I went to a university open day recently and they were very positive about the possibilities of AI in the creative industries, which I found reassuring. They were embracing it rather than hiding from it.

I think we need to tackle Meta for starters, perhaps with government support? Hopefully the next government will be proactive in supporting such an important industry. Publishers and agents will also have to get on board to support the talent on which they depend. As creators, we hand over our work to others, and expect them to look after it, and us. I hope they will look after our future too.

JLM MORTON – poet

When I was in Stockholm last year, a man in a bar urged me to use AI to save myself the bother of writing poems. Personally, I think that although AI can be harnessed to productive ends, it is a long way off writing anything like passable poetry at the moment – given it learns from the often poor quality verse that floods the internet, and its current incapacity to reproduce our ineffable humanity.

That said, it would be naive to imagine that AI isn’t a real and present danger, if not to our work, then to the value that’s placed on it. The man in the Stockholm bar has found his way into a poem in my new collection which begins to grapple with what it is we’re saving the human race from in the ‘battle’ against AI.

I think we urgently need a regulatory system to identify usages of authors’ work and enforce penalties and sanctions, but I am dubious about the likely effectiveness of this – AI is no respecter of international borders. At national level, maybe we have a fighting chance.

I’m with Noam Chomsky who said the only real way to counter the rise of AI is to nurture and strengthen our critical thinking, organise ourselves and develop intellectual self-defence.

PAUL POWELL – comedy writer and producer

I worry that some of the more straightforward writing work could be done rather easily by AI, saving the cost of paying a writer for at least a day or two. One of the things I do is write links for TV shows and I’m sure they are a shoo-in for AI because there’s a formula to them. The BAFTAs presenter script for example – that would be AI in its element. So do I fear it’s going to cost writers, who are already quite low down in the TV food chain, bread and butter work.

It’s also crazy that large language models like ChatGPT could be learning to replace me by being fed my own links and comedy gags. Where’s my credit? There’s no transparency around all this and meanwhile I’m effectively being throttled by my own work.

I don’t want to feel like a Luddite during the Industrial Revolution, smashing up the machines. And there’s a certain inevitability about all of this: it’s the world we’re living in. So part of me thinks: there’s no point in shaking my fist at AI and saying ‘you can’t replace me!’ Because it can!

My hope is that human comedy writers still have the edge. Humour is illogical and surprising, it’s absurd, it’s nonsensical. Let’s advocate for that.

Whatever the emotions we as authors are experiencing in the face of AI, one thing is for sure. Putting your writer’s head in the sand is not an option. So please make sure you make your voice heard through this survey, as ALCS begins to work with its partners in formulating a solution.

Meanwhile, here’s a galvanising quote from ALCS Chair Tom Chatfield:

“Writing is an act of connection between humans. Now more than ever, we as creatives need to be very bold in advocating for the deep significance of talent and truth and transparency in human communication”.

Caroline Sanderson
Writer, editor and books journalist. Her memoir – Listen With Father: How I Learned to Love Classical Music – will be published by Unbound in July 2025.