The Elephant.. Part Three

Photo by Stormseeker on Unsplash

{continued from part two} 

6. The Return of McCarthyism

Remember the big bad-guy AI, I mentioned from science fiction? Back in the 1950s, when AI fiction first took off, it was never really about computers at all. It was about Communism. America, during the early Cold War, was gripped by fear. Egged on by Senator Joe McCarthy, the Red Scare became an Us vs Them mentality that was impossible to ignore. Because all it took was one finger point, and you were evil. You were blacklisted. You were the enemy. 

The aliens in the old sci fi movies represented this fear. So did the early AI ideas. And it was a real fear in Hollywood. People would be blacklisted just for the supposed "crime" of being Communist. Nothing could be more "un-American". 

History loves to repeat itself. 

The publishing industry is where it's happening hardest. 

Social media, already moving into rather nasty place overall, has become a haven of finger pointing. And it's not just there. The Commonwealth Prize for Short Fiction has a massive AI Scandal and just two days ago, another massive book deal was dropped over suspected AI use. 

I'm not angry at AI... I'm angry at the industry. I'm angry at the lack of critical thinking. And for the record, according to MIT and others, AI-checkers just do not work. AI detectors are trained on human writing, and have claimed that the Declaration of Independence is AI and so is Shakespeare, Bronte and more. 

Publishing is in a precarious place. By Sept 2025, nearly half of industry professionals, including editors and agents, reported using AI. Yet all had deep ethical concerns. The industry's answer thus far has been to demand that anyone who uses AI disclose it. 

In fact, the big 5 publishers developed a Framework meant to guide their own authors. It boils to this, admit if you used AI in the process, and you're an AI Author. Hard stop. 

Oof. 

Swing and a miss. 

This is not an Ethics policy, or even a guide. It's so mistaken it's laughable. 

I take an in-person writing class, for example, each week in Valletta. We sometimes answer writing prompts, as a way to jog the creativity. You know what I'm talking about, the prompts like "you walk into a room, and suddenly you see it..." These prompts have been helping writers for decades. Now let's say one of those writing prompts encouraged a full book. And...what if AI had provided that prompt? Is it an AI book? 

What if you were doing research and typed a search question into Google. The only answer you get is driven by AI. If you use that answer, is your book an AI book? 

The authors out there who are pointing the fingers the strongest, and decrying all possible AI use are missing the lines. If you advertise on Meta now (long considered the gold standard of advertising), you cannot opt out of AI. If your book exists on the largest book search engine globally (Amazon)- the sole defining feature of their algorithm that defines your books visibility is Amazon's internal AI. Does marketing your book on Meta make you an AI author? Where is the line? 

Industry after industry is giving guidance to its professionals. At CharityScribe, we even offer nonprofits a free AI Ethics Policy to help them, which they customize to fit their own needs. Authors NEED​ an ethics policy. They need to know that AI exists. Yes, the big companies have done terrible stuff, but not everything you hear is true either. And the finger pointing and blaming really need to stop...    

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​7. A Story You Might Know

There's a story going around the internet. It talks about a teacher who gave 35 students an essay question. He placed a hidden line of text in white, saying to put the word Madagascar in a nonsensical way into the essay. 32 of the students turned an essay in with the word Madagascar in it, and failed, for AI use. 

Maybe you've heard the story. I've seen it posted dozens of times. And it perfectly illustrates a point... but not the point you think it does. 

I did a bit of digging. Turns out the "source" of this story is Facebook. That seems to be as far back as it goes. The New York Post and several other outlets picked it up, citing Facebook. If you ask AI, the systems will say it is true, because it was on Facebook...

But let's think about this story. If you've ever used a general use AI (like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, etc) you know that they work by copying instructions into a text box. So...35 students supposedly copy and paste... which would make the white text appear in the text box, wouldn't it? Let's go a bit deeper... let's say that somehow all 35 students did somehow miss the instruction, and maybe uploaded an image of their question. They've put this same essay prompt into different AI models 35 times. Here's where the story's logic falls completely apart. Remember how AI works? It's based on algorithmic predictions. In other words, there is a near-zero chance that one instruction, entered 35 times, would actually be followed correctly! There's very little chance that the AIs are going to get the Madagascar instruction right that often! 

Now, maybe the story is true. Maybe it's not. I've seen zero proof either way. But here's the real kicker... why is the story on Facebook in the first place? And how does it make you feel? 

McCarthyism is the utmost outgrowth of propaganda out of control. And isn't that endemic of our current world? From the rise of fascist governments, to a growing distrust of media, and more... the story of the test is just another example of propaganda that worked. It likely tapped into your confirmation bias and fed your hate of AI. And it proved the exact point you thought you were reading about the students... that critical thinking and analysis are often shortchanged in the era of AI (US AI-generated totally incorrect map of Africa, for instance...)

Photo by Vlad Deep on Unsplash

​8. What's Next? 

So what's the answer? If AIs nearly impossible to detect and does train on our books, how do we develop our own AI Ethics policies as authors? Is AI okay to use? Is it even avoidable? 

I can't answer those questions for you- because I think every author out there has to think hard, and answer them for themselves. 

FOR ME:
I will never use any AI words or AI generated text in any part of my books.
​I will also never use AI generated text in blogs
However, I am fine with AI as a part of advertising. I have started making book trailers for my Builder's World middle grade books, and I admit I used AI to make these trailers. I also drew the covers myself in Canva, but then used AI to augment the covers further. 

In a rather mundane admission, I also am fine asking AI for advice. Formatting my Builder's World books was difficult, as I've not self published through Ingram before. I reached out to the Ingram team for help, and got no response. So...I asked an AI. And yes, it was able to tell me why my sizing was off. It didn't write or change any of the text. For me, asking AI for advice in publishing questions is an acceptable use. 

And...I'm terrified to publish this piece. I'm sure some will read it, and in the same McCarthyistic vein, label me an AI Author who must be banished into the abyss. They will go out of their way to decry my decisions. Yes, that's the publishing world right now. It's a nasty place. 

But the truth is that saying AI is all bad or all good misses the fact that it's here. It's environmental impact is far less than a hamburger. The biggest tech companies and plenty of individuals are using it to do bad things...but others are genuinely trying to leverage AI for good. And I think that moving forward, every author has to exercise a bit of critical thinking and ask if the finger pointing serves them, or if it only holds them back.

If you are totally against AI in all forms, I respect that. 
If you use AI daily, I respect that too. 

The worst thing about the social media age is the move to an "I'm right, you're wrong" soapbox mentality, without taking the time to listen to why others might disagree. Agree, or disagree, think hard about how you came to this place mentally in your relation to AI... and ask yourself what your own ethics around the subject might be?