Got you there, didn’t I?
Let me complete the title properly: The real threat to the literary industry isn’t AI; it’s human ego with access to Wi-Fi and social media.
The literary world has recently discovered a new hobby.
Not writing better books.
Not reading more literature.
Not supporting struggling authors.
No.
The new Olympic sport is screaming: “THIS WAS WRITTEN BY AI!”
And apparently, everyone is now a certified Artificial Intelligence detective.
A post has too many emojis?
AI generated.
A sentence uses an em-dash?
Definitely AI.
The grammar is too polished?
Impossible for a human being. Arrest the author immediately.
Someone designed a decent-looking book cover without using Microsoft Paint from 2007?
Obviously created by a secret underground robot laboratory beneath Silicon Valley.
We are now living in an era where half the literary community behaves like medieval villagers spotting witchcraft.
“Hmm… this paragraph flows too smoothly.”
“Burn the manuscript.”
The funniest part is that many of these self-proclaimed AI experts barely understand AI themselves. Their entire expertise comes from watching three YouTube shorts, reading two angry Facebook posts, and attending one webinar titled “How ChatGPT will destroy humanity and also your poetry group.”
Suddenly, everyone has become Sherlock Holmes with a Grammarly subscription.
One person sees a semicolon and launches a forensic investigation.
Another sees proper punctuation and starts sweating nervously.
Someone else notices the author used the word “delve,” and immediately declares: “Case closed. Machine involvement.”
Meanwhile, actual AI researchers are discussing neural networks, large language models, datasets, and alignment theory; while literary Facebook groups are out there treating emojis like fingerprints at a crime scene.
“Three smiley faces? Highly suspicious.”
Of course, AI is being used. People use it for brainstorming, editing, formatting, marketing, and sometimes even writing assistance. Just like calculators did not destroy mathematics and spellcheck did not end literature, AI itself is not the apocalypse.
What is destroying creativity is the toxic culture of suspicion mixed with giant egos and tiny amounts of actual knowledge.
Some people in the literary world have egos so large they require their own postal code. The moment they encounter writing that sounds cleaner, sharper, or more organised than theirs, they don’t ask: “How can I improve?”
Instead, they whisper dramatically: “Artificial intelligence…”
It is literary jealousy dressed up as technological concern.
And let us be honest; many writers have been using “tools” forever. Editors polish prose. Beta readers fix plot holes. Grammarly corrects grammar (I have used it for ages; even for this article). Canva helps with design. Photoshop edits covers. Ghostwriters quietly exist in corners of publishing nobody talks about loudly.
But somehow, an em-dash now represents the collapse of civilisation.
The greatest irony is that while these AI detectives are busy hunting innocent em-dashes, actual bad writing continues roaming freely across the internet completely unchallenged.
The literary industry does not need fewer tools. It needs fewer gatekeepers pretending they invented originality.
Because right now, AI is not replacing writers.
People with oversized egos and undersized understanding are simply embarrassing themselves faster than technology ever could.
I miss the days when people asked questions and engaged in dialogue rather than being judgmental.
“Be curious, not judgmental.”
And if you’re wondering whether I heard that in Ted Lasso — yes, you are absolutely right. Fun fact: literary historians and researchers have confirmed that Walt Whitman never actually wrote or said those exact words. But we surely could use them today.
Peace out!!!
Pic source — Pixabay (Engin_Akyurt)
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