My First Time Using AI Software

Oh yes. It's one of the most controversial topics in the world of writing.

And I tried it.

Yes, I know it's not something a creative writer should be using. But before you click out of this article, hear me out. And no, I had no help with this article. It's all me.

Why I Did it

For months, I've been seeing and reading various articles about AI writing and photo-generating software on Medium.

Many writers seem supportive of it, saying it's a great tool and that they use it to help them write, but I also see other content saying it saps creativity and will render writers useless.

I find this funny because editing software has been around for much longer than this, and it hasn't hurt us, not really.

If anything, using software like Grammarly is very helpful, especially if you've looked at the same manuscript a dozen times. And some clients like it when we use Grammarly to help us.

But back to the main topic, I recently got to edit a book created by AI. It was a book about the power of affirmations.

And the content wasn't bad.

So, after I finished that assignment, I decided to start investigating AI.

I hadn't given it much thought before but figured it could help me with specific projects if I were having a hard time coming up with good content.

And, if nothing else, I wanted the bragging rights, saying that I at least tried it before creating my opinion about it.

Finding the Right Software for Me

I started with ChatGPT since that's one of the most popular ones out there, but I didn't like how it was set up, and it wasn't what I was looking for. I also checked into Jasper AI but chose not to go that way.

See, I was looking for something that could generate articles from a topic but wasn't overly technical and didn't require a paid subscription. I didn't think it was worth paying for something I wouldn't be using a lot.

Luckily for me, I found Writesonic, AI software that had what I wanted.

It is very user-friendly and walks you through the program when you first sign up, which is good for someone like me who isn't always software-savvy.

The library is filled with different templates, such as blog content, Google ads, call-to-actions, landing pages, etc. You can also create your own AI template for whatever it is you want to do.

There are too many options for me to list all of them, though.

The free plan gives you a set word count of ten thousand words a month. The paid options give you more, the number depending on your preferences.

You can use the words for either written content or their picture-generating portion, called Photosonic, which is similar to DALL-E but included in Writesonic.

Using Writesonic

But anyway, I used it to write an article about why prepositions aren't bad in writing. And it was pretty good. The content was presented well and provided the history of it and examples, as well as tips and tricks.

It also let me convert the article into a Word docx, my preferred writing format.

But I don't think writers are in danger of being replaced.

For one thing, the content got a little repetitive, something I also noticed with the affirmations book I edited. But more importantly, it lacked one of the most important aspects of writing; voice.

No matter how cool it is, it could never replace the experiences and voice of a writer. But it can be used as a tool to help writers add value to their content, depending on what they are writing about.

As for the article, I don't think I'll be publishing it on Vocal. Not that I don't plan to make the content my own, but I'm pretty sure the moderators would reject it.

And I don't blame them. After all, Vocal is a writing platform that stresses creative writing, and allowing AI content to be published would defeat that.

However, I also publish my stories on Medium, and it doesn't have the same emphasis on that type of writing, and as far as I know, there are no moderators.

So, it'll go there, and I'll include a link to my profile at the end of this post.

Using Photosonic and DALL-E

To be honest, I'd been intrigued by this for a while.

As someone who isn't a graphic designer or knows their way around photo editing and art-related software, I think these are a great way to get around that.

And yes, I used both of them.

But I tried Photosonic first, mainly because it was more convenient. And I like objects and programs that are multi-purpose.

For those who don't know how it works, you write as many descriptive words into the search engine as you can, click Generate, and wait for the AI to do its thing.

It's pretty good, although each generation takes away from your allotted word count, which is a bummer when you only have ten thousand words for the month.

And it doesn't save your photos to your History automatically.

So, I tried DALL-E next.

It's also good. And while it does run on a point system, from what I understand, you can purchase them as needed. So you don't have to wait for the next 'billing cycle.'

It also gives you the option of seeing variations of a specific photo. I found this useful a few times. And it automatically saves all generated images to your History.

I plan to use both, although I'll probably lean toward DALL-E for the aforementioned reasons.

However, I will probably hire someone to help design my book covers. It's nearly impossible to replace the artist's eye, after all.

Chatsonic and ChatGPT

For the sake of being thorough, Writesonic has its version of ChatGPT, which is Chatsonic.

While I haven't tried out this part of the software, from what I saw, I'm assuming it's basically the same thing function-wise.

So, What do I Think of AI Software?

Well, I don't think AI software will take over the world.

It's very new and still has a long way to go. And neither writers nor graphic designers should reject it without trying it for themselves.

As with many things, it can be a great tool if we use it correctly.

It reduces the amount of research without the risk of plagiarism, which is nice. It also lets us experiment with making our own photos for whatever we want.

But I don't think we creatives should become lazy and use them all the time, either.

All of us know how to make a story from words or a picture from colors, something AI can't replicate, and we shouldn't let those muscles weaken simply for the sake of speed and convenience.

I know I certainly won't.

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it. Likes, shares, tips, pledges, follows, and subscriptions are always cherished. :)

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