To AI or not to AI. That is the question.

By Bruce Hennigan

As twenty-first-century authors, we’re all concerned about the confusing world of AI, its influence and its use in publishing. Trying to navigate the publishing industry’s ever-changing attitude toward any use of AI can be as confusing as trying to understand terms like algorithm drift or generative AI and other obscure AI terms.

In a recent article on Gizmodo.com, interesting facts surfaced. Based on interviews on Wired.com, the changing face of American readers is disturbing.

First, literacy is “in an all-out crisis.” This shouldn’t be surprising to any of us in the writing business. Students are the worst they have been in over 25 years with regard to the desire to read a book. 

Second, in a study cited in the report, from 2003 to 2023, reading for “pleasure” declined about 3% per year! In fact, as evidenced by the lack of Christian male authors and the scarcity of male-centered books in the Christian fiction market, 44% of American men did NOT read a book in 2025!

I thought I knew the reasons publishers spurned AI-generated material in books. Surprisingly, the reason publishers are reluctant to publish works with AI-generated material is because “publishers and movie companies may not be able to register copyright and come away with a clear title chain if there are certain AI elements in the mix.”

However, “executives are just generally enthused about AI—allegedly exploring a wide array of uses, like expanding translation, generating promotional materials, and monitoring employee productivity. Executives also aroused suspicion that they’re generating their own internal documents with AI tools.”

According to the article, in an interesting development, “An agent says they’ve started making publishers agree in advance not to run entire unpublished manuscripts through LLMs in order to generate promotional text—something that had apparently become an issue.” “Ostensibly, that was meant to protect authors from tech companies, but it also applies to the company buying and publishing the book,” the anonymous agent said.

Personally, I use Prowriting Aid for basic editing, and when I run my manuscript through an AI detector, it comes out 92% human and 8% AI. I also use AI to generate cover ideas. Once I have a possible cover image generated, I send it to my illustrator, who then comes up with a very humanized cover. I also use AI for research.

Where are authors in the confusing world of AI: Author Intelligence or AI?

Currently, I am working on a children’s book I started years ago for my daughter. At the time, I got so far as to have an almost finished manuscript and book proposal. Then a certain Pixar movie came out, Toy Story, which was basically the story of my book! I put the manuscript on the shelf. Now that I have grandchildren, I am reviving the book. I want some illustrations in the book, so I am using my personal photographs of friends and animals and AI to generate images for the book. Since they are MY photographs, I own them. Is this an illegitimate use of AI? I’m not sure. And that is the problem. None of us are sure!

What is the bottom line? How do you use AI, if at all, in your works? I recently helped a young teenage girl publish her life story. Her original manuscript was AI-generated because she has cerebral palsy and dictated most of her story in a rambling style. AI took her story and organized it in a nice, chapter-by-chapter format. But a large publishing entity refused to allow her to self-publish her story because it was 98% AI-generated.

I took her story and “humanized” it after meeting with her and her parents. I took out some of the elements of AI-generated text, and the story remained the same, just slightly reworded. When we ran the final manuscript through IngramSpark, no controversy. Her book is now on the market, and she can tell her story, “More Than My Diagnosis” by Ruby Elizabeth.

Like the sword of Damocles hanging over our heads, we must continue to navigate the ever-changing threat and/or necessity of AI in our writing. One thing is for sure: the future landscape will be fluid!

Bruce Hennigan is a physician in the field of radiology and the author of over eighteen books. He speaks on a regular basis about Christian apologetics and his struggle with depression.