AI is a hot topic with editors. The big question on everyone’s mind is: Are the robots going to take over our editing jobs?
My take is no – not yet anyway.
Why? Because ‘artificial intelligence’ is just that – artificial. It doesn’t have true intelligence. To be an editor, you need emotional intelligence and you need judgement.
At the moment, AI editing tools simply make best guesses based on huge amounts of data. Not all of that data is ‘correct’, and AI tools can’t make intelligent judgements using nuance and context.
There are loads of examples on the internet where editors have put AI tools to the test and demonstrated how they’ve come up woefully short.
In my own experience, I tried getting ChatGPT to write an explanation of a grammar issue, and it basically got it wrong.
Why?
Because the issue was complicated and it had exceptions and nuances that needed to be considered. ChatGPT was pulling information from badly written, incomplete, contradicting and sometimes incorrect data sources.
Since it didn’t have the intelligence to simply write a correct explanation of the rule, I certainly wouldn’t expect it to be able to accurately apply the rule to a piece of writing.
AI editing tools do have their place, though.
They are going to be standard tools in an editor’s arsenal very soon, if they aren’t already.
Proofreading tools are going to be just as useful as spelling and grammar checkers, which we’re all already very used to using.
We already used these kinds of tools not to dictate edits but to inform them.
We still have to apply our own understanding and judgement.
Will editing roles change?
As AI tools at the proofreading end of the scale get stronger and more sophisticated, I can see proofreading as a standalone job becoming assimilated into the copy-editor’s role.
This has already been happening, over the years, with tighter publishing budgets, but I can see the onus of catching errors falling into the combined hands of computer and editor, rather than editor and proofreader.
What about other kinds of editing?
A lot of people think that developmental editors are harder to replace with AI tools, and I tend to agree.
Though there are AI tools designed to help with big-picture story analysis, I’ve studied these and they all fall short.
All of them.
They can write convincing editorial reports, sure. But how useful and applicable are these reports?
Not very, in my view.
They seem to either churn out generic advice that isn’t tailored to the piece of writing its supposed to be analysing, or they spit out data-driven analysis that isn’t accompanied by useful creative interpretation or suggestions for improvement.
Ethics? Real-world application?
I’m not even going to touch on the ethics of the creation and use of AI tools because that is such a huge topic, but it’s fair to say these tools are being built on some very sketchy ethical foundations, and unfortunately I don’t think governing bodies are going to give two hoots about creating laws around this any time soon.
There’s something else to consider, though, and that’s the potential AI tools have versus the real-world application they end up having.
Why do people write? Why do people read?
Partly for entertainment, yes, but an even bigger reason – I believe – is for human connection.
HUMAN connection.
Novels written by AI lack heart and soul – do we want that?
And if not, why would we put novels through an editing process that also lacks heart and soul (as well as creative judgement)?
Writing and publishing are industries with heart.
I can’t see how outsourcing a huge part of that industry to robots is going to be something anyone really wants.
Yes, publishing is a business. Yes, the bottom line matters. And that’s why editors will adapt to using AI tools – to make the editorial process more accurate and efficient.
But honestly, though the role of the editor will change, I don’t think editors will be disappearing anytime soon due to the rise of AI.
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