What I'm doing to protect myself against AI accusations as an author

I thought I’d said everything I had to say about the ongoing AI witch hunts in this post from a couple of weeks ago, but hey! Guess what?! I’ve got more for ya!

To quickly re-cap for the benefit of those of you who have actual offline lives, and are therefore blissfully unaware of all of this: there are witch hunts. Yes, like in the olden days, except this time the witch hunts revolve around people accusing authors of having used AI to write their books (often without a single shred of evidence), and then cancelling them for it.

This state of affairs has been ongoing for a while now, but it took a more worrying turn earlier this month when publishers and agents started hunting witches too, and withdrawing deals from authors they suspect might be guilty of using AI. Cue lots of authors publishing earnest anti-AI declarations on their newsletters and social media, along with detailed info on how they intend to defend themselves against accusations of AI when the witch hunters come for them — which, let’s make no mistake, they will. Sooner or later, they’re going to come for us all, because witch hunting is a hobby for these people, and they’re not going to give it up without a fight.

(And, OK, also because AI is repulsive, and a genuine issue facing the industry. That doesn’t excuse the witch hunts, obviously, but it does have to be acknowledged…)

I like to think I’ve already made my anti-AI stance clear: I don’t use it, don’t like it, and if I have to read one more piece of text with the phrase, “not this, but that,” or “And honestly?” in it, I will probably scream, like Veruca Salt when she doesn’t get her own way on something.

I’ve never, though, explained exactly how I’m planing to PROVE I don’t use AI in my writing (other than through my cunning use of typos, I mean…), so here, for the avoidance of all doubt, is how I will do it:

I won’t.

No, I’m being serious: I have absolutely no intention of contorting myself into increasingly ridiculous shapes in order to prove to a bunch of armchair detectives that I’m a real person who writes her books herself.

Because I refuse to willingly take part in a witch hunt.

Because I firmly believe the burden of proof should be on the accuser, not on the accused.

And, finally, because there is literally no way to prove a negative, is there?

I mean, let’s see…

OK. I mean, I could show you my notes, I guess? Here you go:

This is an actual page from the notebook I used while drafting the book I’ve just handed over to my publisher. OR IS IT? Because, I mean, I could’ve scrawled that note to myself at any point, couldn’t I? It’s not dated: and, even if it was, unless you’re going to somehow forensically test it to scientifically date when it was written, it would count for nothing.

A lot of my notes are like this. Most of them are legible only to me; some not even. As well as that “OMFG, what’s the poiiinntttt”, here’s some other stuff you’ll find in this particular notebook:

• character names that changed by the final version and therefore do not appear in the published book.

• random scenes and dialogue I did not end up using in the manuscript.

• plot points I completely changed, and which, again, bear no relation to the finished draft.

• a random note I scrawled to my husband when he was on a video call but I needed to tell him I was going out somewhere.

• quite a lot of very private stream-of-consciousness journal-type stuff that I use to try to clear my head and figure stuff out, but which I would literally rather die1 than show anyone.

Like, I’m sorry, folks, but you’re not getting to see my notes. And, even if you DID see them, they would prove absolutely nothing, because not only do a lot of them make no sense at all, if you were determined to think I’d used AI to write my book, I suppose you’d just say I could’ve written those notes after the fact, wouldn’t you?

But… drafts! Authors should surely be able to show their readers evidence of all the drafts they created in the process of writing their books!

Um, no. Not necessarily.

I’ve said this before, but I don’t really write ‘drafts’. I write everything in a single document, changing and removing things as I go. I do often have a second document I use as a kind of dumping ground for stuff I’ve taken out but still want to keep for future books or whatever, but I don’t create an entirely new ‘draft’ every time I change something. I could show you the document history, which details every time something changed:

This is from the Reedsy editor, which I use to draft, and it’s the document history for Highland Getaway. But all it proves is that I made changes to the document at various times. That doesn’t prove I didn’t use AI to make those changes, though, does it? I mean, I DIDN’T, and I hope I’m making that clear enough. But, again, if you were determined to accuse me of it, the document history doesn’t prove anything, because you’d just say that all of those changes could be me pasting text in from ChatGPT. (Especially given that I seem to have made them ALL at exactly 19:21, which… HOW?2) I don’t expect people who write produce AI books just type in a prompt and have it spit out an entire, 90,000 word book, which they then publish without making a single change to it, after all. (DO THEY?) Surely they must change things and tweak things? And surely doing that would ALSO create a document history that would look something like the one above. Surely?

“But you can include your process on socials!” says the person in the screenshot above. Aha! Yes! So I can! Except… whoops, no, actually, I can’t. I spent all of last year, for instance, unable to say anything AT ALL about my book, because the publisher wanted to wait until the official announcement. I’m currently in exactly the same position with book number 2: I literally can’t tell you anything about it, much less ‘talk at length’ about it. (Which is why I have my hand over half of the page in the photo of my notebook — there was some stuff there that would give too much of the plot away…) This is actually quite frustrating for me, because I am by nature an over-sharer, but it’s very common in traditional publishing, and a very good reason why not all authors will be ‘sharing their process’ on their socials. Hell, some authors don’t even HAVE ‘socials’. Or they have pen names and want to remain anonymous. Or they just don’t WANT to have to ‘share their process’ on freaking Instagram, which is absolutely their right, and who are you to tell them that, actually, they must post stuff on Instagram, even if they don’t want to, or you’ll tell on them?

So what else can I do to prove that I write my own books? All that’s really left, I suppose, is for me to actually video myself writing… but, not only would that be the weirdest thing ever, the fact is that videos can be faked. Unless the screen is clearly visible (which it can’t be, because, again, I’m not allowed to share the book publicly until the publisher says so, plus I don’t want to share my WIP until I’m completely done with it…), I could be writing anything. My grocery list. Taylor Swift lyrics. The words “All work and no play makes Amber a dull girl” over and over again.

More importantly, though, why on God’s green earth would you think you have the right to WATCH me working? To read my private notes? To casually demand that I publicly perform ‘being an author’ in the exact way you deem appropriate, or you’ll destroy my entire career based on a ‘hunch’? Can you see how creepy and weird that is? How completely intolerable that level of scrutiny would be to… well, to anyone, really, let alone authors, who, as a group tend to be on the introverted/private side?

And yet, incredible though it seems, this is the situation we seem to be facing. Just this week I’ve seen numerous Instagram posts from fellow authors saying “yes, you can see my notes! Yes, you can read my drafts! Look, here is a photo of me working!” And while I understand why they’re all doing this, I’m afraid I won’t be joining them, because I honestly believe that no matter how much ‘evidence’ you attempt to provide, it will never, ever be enough for the witch hunters. There will always be another hoop they’ll want you to jump through, and then another one after that. And, I don’t know about you, but I’m done jumping through hoops to appease people on the Internet.

So I will swear on the Bible3 that I didn’t use AI. I will sign any number of legal documents declaring this. If you’re my agent or publisher, I will answer any questions you have, and have as many discussions as you need to convince you. I will cross my heart and hope to die.

But I will not give you access to my private notes, which are almost like a diary. I will not turn every writing session into some weird public performance, which is recorded and broadcast for the internet to pick apart. I will absolutely not be giving up my beloved em dashes and Oxford commas (although I think most of those got edited out of my last book: boo!), because if you think only AI writes like that, then you clearly haven’t read enough books. I said what I said.

Ultimately, instead of asking myself how I’m going to prove I didn’t use AI, I’m going to ask YOU4 to prove I did.

I’ll wait…

If you’d like to read a non-AI Scottish romcom, Highland Getaway is out now. I wrote every single word myself, and deleted quite a lot too. You can find it anywhere that sells books, or by clicking on the image below…