Everywhere we turn, we’re told that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is either taking over our minds, the most efficient work assistant since desktop computers—or both things at once. It’s even become necessary in some circles to declare writing 100 percent human, so let me assure you that every word of this blog was put down by me and me alone.
Even without understanding how it works, I get that we can’t just ignore this quantum shift. So today I’m going to share my current workflow, along with some of what’s going on in the author/writing space. My only request is that all comments be 100 percent human-created—and, of course, respectful of others, even if they don’t share your views.
Detection
How do you tell whether content was created by a human? There are (of course) AI detection services that will rate a given story. I haven’t tried them out, though I’ve heard that my love of m-dashes might indicate AI-generated content to the algorithm.
At the other end of the automation scale, the Author’s Guild has created a Human Authored certification mark that works on the honor system. While I hope it is effective, I don’t (yet) see the value of adding it to my own work.
Slippery Slope
Any discussion about AI use by writers quickly devolves into nitpicking. I use online search tools and a transcription service, so I can no longer say that AI plays no part in my work flow. What I can promise is that I do all the actual writing myself, much the way we were taught in high school to put researched facts “into our own words” to avoid plagiarism.
Another place where AI helps many authors is apps that improve spelling and grammar, but those are not currently part of my work flow. (I’ve even heard of desperate email marketers who consciously add typos, just to prove how “human” they are.)
Speed and Acceleration
Books take me years to write, because even non-fiction stories (at least for this pantser) never take the most efficient path from Once Upon a Time to The End. Meanwhile, a properly prompted AI bot can churn out a story in seconds that some readers may find perfectly satisfying . . . And in the time it took me to finish this sentence, the bot has probably already made significant improvements in its voice and plot.
Not Going Away
All of this is only going to get less black and white in the days and years to come—as well as undoubtedly harder to avoid in both my own workflow and the greater world of writing. Based on early 2026 research, publishing expert Jane Friedman estimates that “the number of works with some percentage of AI-generated or AI-assisted text within their pages is approaching 25 to 50 percent for nonfiction in particular and may soon be the majority.” Wow! (There’s much more in her excellent post, My Concerns About the Authors Guild Human Authored Certification. She also offered a refreshing perspective ten months ago that stands up well: What AI Can’t Steal from You.)
Learning from Our Words
I haven’t even touched on a much larger issue: AI training itself on copyrighted (human) writing. Though there are several ongoing lawsuits, I don’t see any big-picture fix for this. My small-picture response is to try to minimize AI’s access to my own human-authored words.
What do you think: is AI taking over our minds, the most efficient work assistant since desktop computers, or both? Blow off a little steam in the comments below, because I read every single human-generated reply—and appreciate the spam filters that eliminate everything else. Meanwhile, you can safely assume that every blog post on this site was human-generated—no matter how many m-dashes you find.
Thanks for reading, and see you next Thursday.