The Ethics of A.I. for Writers

Meet Toni Anne Laudano. An MIT dropout, a genius at data encryption, a baseball fan, she became a self-made multi-millionaire in her twenties. Toni Anne then volunteered to work for U.S. Cyber Command for a salary of $1 per year. Ms. Laudano has a vocabulary that could make a sailor blush, and her tendency to speak her mind has made her enemies in high places, including the current Chief of Staff to the President of the United States.

She considers herself the world's greatest cyber warrior, among her accomplishments is a stunningly successful sting operation directed at the President of Russia. Her boss, a four-star general likes to quote The Rolling Stones when describing Toni Anne: She is practiced at the art of deception.

Ms. Laudano is one of the three Point of View characters in the book I'm writing, Useful Idiot.
The story is delivered through the eyes and thoughts of one of the Point of View characters in each scene.

What does this have to do with A.I.?

The picture above was generated by AI. I typed in a description, and four pictures were generated. I refined my description, and after about 20 tries the perfect Toni Anne emerged.

I've generated pictures of all the main characters. I have two computer screens, on the main screen is the book in progress, on the smaller screen are the pictures of the main characters. As I write, especially about a Point of View character, I look at them. What would they be thinking? What would they say? How would they say it?

What are the ethical implications? If I had an illustrator create these pictures, it would have cost at least hundreds of dollars. As a practical matter, I wouldn't have done the pictures.

But there are other things AI can do that are more practical, and displace real people. Something came up just today.

More next week.