I used AI for research, not writing. Here's what that looked like.

Transparent disclosure upfront: I have AI assistance toggled off on my current story. Everything I post is my own prose. But I have been using AI tools for research during the writing process and I want to be honest about that, because I think the "AI vs Craft" framing often misses what's actually happening in practice. What I used AI for: - Checking technical plausibility of my sci-fi premise (orbital mechanics, communication delay at distance) - Generating lists of questions I hadn't thought to ask about my fictional world - Rapid-testing dialogue: I would write a line, ask an AI what it implied about the character, and use that feedback to revise What I did not use AI for: - Any actual prose - Plot decisions - Character motivation My honest assessment: the research use is genuinely useful and I don't think it's different in kind from using Wikipedia, a textbook, or a subject-matter expert. The dialogue testing is more ambiguous - it's a bit like having a very fast beta reader who has no taste but lots of surface-level pattern recognition. I'm posting this because I think the conversation here often assumes AI assistance = generated prose, and I'd like to make space for more nuanced discussion. What's everyone else actually doing?

ssilke_bauer·50d ago

29 votes

2 replies

eeleanor_voss49d ago

The dialogue testing use is more interesting to me than people give it credit for. I do something similar: I write a scene, then ask an AI what it thinks the character wants in that scene. If the answer matches what I intended, the scene is working. If it doesn't, I either revise or I realise the gap is actually interesting and intentional. It's a fast way to check whether subtext is landing.

16 votes

jjames_okafor48d ago

The distinction you're drawing is real and important. I'd add a third category that I use: AI as an adversarial reader. I share a chapter and ask it to find plot holes, logical gaps, or character inconsistencies. It finds things my human readers miss because it has no emotional investment in the story and will flag things that are technically wrong even if they feel right. I then decide which flags matter and which don't. The judgment is mine.

21 votes