ᎢᎻᎬ ᏬᏚᎬ ᎾᎱ ᎪᎡᎢᏆᎱᏆᏟᏆᎪᏞ ᏆᏁᎢᎬᏞᏞᏆᏀᎬᏁᏟᎬ ᏆᏁ ᎳᎡᏆᎢᏆᏁᏀ

Original Content | June 1, 2025 | by Laz A. Mataz

[Lazamataz]

Using AI to help write? The short answer is, I don't.

There is a person, Tim Boucher, who has used AI to write at least 97 books. That's impressive, but I would wager that if I got into reading one of them, it would be an intolerable slog that I wouldn't be able to get through.

That is because of my observations when getting AI to experimentally generate some fiction. Everything it writes is very hackneyed, very trite material. Everything always ends up positive, everyone is happy, there is little conflict or conflict resolution, and every character has the exact same voice.

I like my fiction to have current colloquial expressions, AI doesn't do that. I like to have little plot twists here and there, AI doesn't seem capable. When possible, I like to have my chapters end with a mike-drop sentence. AI hasn't been able to generate one of those.

I'm over 75% finished with my political-thriller / science-fiction novel, so I'm starting to think about leveraging AI to produce a book cover or promotional images and video shorts. Even there, the creativity seems constrained. You can readily identify images created by AI, they all have a certain subjective feel to them.

However, there is a place for automation. It isn't AI, exactly, but automated grammar and punctuation error-checking is a stellar function. It's caught a lot of my minor errors. Even then, sometimes, I'll take artistic license to have characters speak with a more 'real-life' tone, or to describe a circumstance with more punch.

[UCANSEE2]

I thought it would be when the AI just said NO.

[left that other site]

I’m with you, Laz!

I hate A! generated writing, images, and music.

All of it fits your analysis.

[RainMan]

I do use AI in writing, but to a very limited extent, as a super-editor. As owner of a publication, when stories are assigned, I require my writers to record the interviews and submit the recordings to me, and to write the stories without the use of AI. Once the stories are submitted, I take their story, along with the transcript of the interview, and instructions for AI regarding the story audience, length, etc, and have it rewrite the story. The editors and I then compare the stories and give feedback to the writer and ask them to use both their original story, as well as the AI written one to develop the final story.

If they ask why they cant us AI from the start, my response is that if I want AI to write the stories, then why do I need them.

[nwrep]

Wow, this is quite intriguing and sounds like a page turner. Congratulations and looking forward to this.

[Big Red Badger]

Well Done!
.
We know You’ve been Busy.

[UCANSEE2]

Funny how we can remember a poem that’s probably 50 years old, but can’t find our eyeglasses because they are on top of our head.

[Nateman]

Or walk into a room but forget what you were looking for.

[Noumenon]

My novel, "Dimensions of Essence", should be available on Amazon within the month of June.

Cool. I'll be sure to pick it up.

[fireman15]

A few months ago I read about a writing professor, college level, who quit in disgust. Her classes were for IT students only. Too many of her students were using AI to write what they handed in to her. She learned how to tell it was AI written or was cleaned up with AI.

Grok was mentioned to me by another Freeper just yesterday. I spent quite a bit of time setting up Nextcloud which is basically an open-source and free alternative to OneDrive on a $119 miniPC that I purchased to use as an energy efficient server.

So, this morning I asked Grok for “code to add NextCloud to docker. That was my exact search term. Docker is “a platform that allows developers to build, deploy, and manage applications in standardized units called containers”. I am using Docker in a Linux installation to perform server functions. This is an excerpt of what Grok came up with,

Docker Compose File for Nextcloud
Create a file named docker-compose.yml with the following content:

yaml

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Wrap

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version: ‘3’

services:
db:
image: mariadb:latest
container_name: nextcloud-mariadb
volumes:
- db_data:/var/lib/mysql
environment:
- MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=your_root_password
- MYSQL_DATABASE=nextcloud
- MYSQL_USER=nextcloud
- MYSQL_PASSWORD=your_db_password
restart: unless-stopped
networks:
- nextcloud_network

redis:
image: redis:latest
container_name: nextcloud-redis
restart: unless-stopped
networks:
- nextcloud_network

app:
image: nextcloud:latest
container_name: nextcloud-app
depends_on:
- db
- redis
volumes:
- nextcloud_data:/var/www/html
- ./app/config:/var/www/html/config
- ./app/custom_apps:/var/www/html/custom_apps
- ./app/data:/var/www/html/data
- ./app/themes:/var/www/html/themes
environment:
- MYSQL_HOST=db
- MYSQL_DATABASE=nextcloud
- MYSQL_USER=nextcloud
- MYSQL_PASSWORD=your_db_password
- REDIS_HOST=redis
- NEXTCLOUD_ADMIN_USER=admin
- NEXTCLOUD_ADMIN_PASSWORD=your_admin_password
- NEXTCLOUD_TRUSTED_DOMAINS=your_domain_or_ip
- OVERWRITEPROTOCOL=https
ports:
- “8080:80”
restart: unless-stopped
networks:
- nextcloud_network

and it continues...

This is almost exactly what I did to get NextCloud to work in my system... It would have saved me quite a bit of time and research if I had started with this code as a template...

I know the code is gobbledegook to most people here, but the result was almost cut and paste ready to install NextCloud into docker. This is almost all done at the command line level using a "terminal" within Linux. Every space, semi-colon, dash and coma have to be placed correctly for it to work. It is interesting that this tool can do this.

[Bob434]

[[if I want AI to write the stories, then why do I need them.]]

Because even though AI can technically write a full story- there is a ton of stuff that it will write that needs editing, needs changing, needs fixing- it’s not an automatic process by any means- much of what AI writes gets removed because it either makes no sense, or doesn’t fit the scene as a whole, or focuses on the wrong actions or whatever- in the end there is an awful lot of human touch needed-

If i plug a paragraph into AI, and ask it to ‘expand’ it, it will do so, but adds a lot of junk that has to be weeded out- the value though of using the AI to check paragraphs is that it will offer ideas the writer can then run with- ideas they might not have thought about- they can then, in their own words, expand the scene using those ideas-

That though is “AI Assisted” Not “AI Written”- there is a difference- I’ve yet to find any AI generated material of paragraph length or more that doesn’t need fixing- expanding, cut, etc-

[teeman8r]

Dimensions of essence is already on amazon… a chatgpt original.

hehehe

t

[teeman8r]

my writing group will be happy to hear the em dash is a marker of intelligence… artificial or otherwise.

[ckilmer]

these days I can get results that pass all ai generator tests by prompting the ai to make every word sound like its spoken out loud and then telling to speak in the voice of any famous authr who wrties you like.

the results are startling.

but then if you’ll also notice that the video simulations are getting very life like too.

[Myrddin]

I'm finding lots of Facebook "Reels" are AI nonsense. Often some horrific disaster that never happened. Commenters are quick to call out the AI nonsense. Too much clickbait.

[PubliusMM]

Let us know when you publish.

[Myrddin]

Those were Myrddin’s words not mine... he likely is the most knowledgeable person by far in the forum on AI, its implications and anything else to do with computer science.

Laz is making good use of AI in his work environment as well. His attempts to get AI to generate good tests against the application have generated results that disappointed him. The nature of the apps I was developing precluded ever letting an AI see the source, so I could not leverage that capability. Others at my place of business did have source code that could be subjected to analysis by private instances of the AI tools. Results have been good enough to warrant additional investment in the tools.

[Bob434]

sounds interesting- from there the writer can edit to make their own-

[Bob434]

not sure if it signals intelligence or not, though writers do use them creatively, saying things without writing them by using the dashes- indicating pauses, uncertainty, etc-

[Bob434]

Thanks for the post- sounds interesting- I think thee4re is much AI can do going forward- Better minds than mine are needed for it though lol. your post has me scratching my head I’m afraid-

[equaviator]

Yes. Although he wrote for National Lampoon, his “Foreigners Around The World” article (1976?) is outstanding.