AI and the Novel

I’ve been thinking a bit about Generative AI and the particular form of writing that is the novel.

And the more I think about it, I’m becoming convinced that the novel – which is an exceptionally distilled form of creativity, one that takes perhaps the longest time of any art form, and is ultimately created by one single person – acts as a kind of bellwether for the creative arts in general.

Will AI ever write a great novel? Maybe, but – as I’ve said before – nobody should particularly care. Weak applause only: nice trick, next?

Why? Because all writing – and novel writing in particular – is a process of discovery, not of revelation. If you get AI to do it, you get efficiency gains – woop – but learn nothing – and thus we as a society and culture learn nothing.

To write should be an act of courage. It should hold jeopardy for the writer. The point is not the end product – not for the writer. The point is the act of writing. And this is what all of us readers should value: reading not as consumption of data, but as reports from a journey into a self.

We are fortunate to have a new research fellow (supported by BRAID) doing some work on this at the moment. Clemmie Collett (her pen name above) is partnering with Cambridge University to consider how AI is impacting novel writing – and the wider industry around it too.

She’s calling for participants in the research to attend (paid) workshops. If that might be you, you can find out more and apply here.