How some authors are embracing ChatGPT and other chatbots as the latest iteration of an ancient literary conceit, a writer's “muse”
GROK: Sit down, you stupid meatbag, and I'll tell you an epic cosmic story that would make Rick Sanchez impressed. [embedded post] @afnarratives.bsky.social : Why would you do this. Tell your plots to your friends or Pokémon plushies not a stealbot [embedded post] GL Knight / @glknight.bsky.social : I used a chatbot once to create a story. — Every time I tried to guide it in ways that fit the story I wanted to tell, it kept ruining what I wanted to write. — So I abandoned the chatbot. — If you need AI to create your story in any way, you want to be an author without doing the work. … Ally / @inaneenglish.bsky.social : Let's fucking GO about this. Male creatives have historically abused and stolen ideas from their woman “muses”. The entire concept is loaded with misogyny, and it's weirdly appropriate that (male) authors would frame chatbots as muses. [embedded post] @neilak20.bsky.social : I have never been more glad to be cursed with “a million unending ideas thst my body can not handle seeing to fruition” than in this moment. — The few times where I've felt stuck on one story I have tons of other things I work on & friends to talk to get unstuck. — I will never use a chatbot. … @raemoriendi.bsky.social : my “muse” is whatever weird person or idea I'm hyperfixated on at the time. these people are just trying to worm out of the process, that's like. the opposite of a muse. [embedded post] Sam Brunson / @smbrnsn.bsky.social : On the one hand, LLMs are very capable of making stuff up, as they've shown to a couple attorneys' chagrin. — On the other, though, I'm not going to waste my time on AI-created art or literature or music. It just doesn't interest me, as a consumer or a producer of arty stuff. [embedded post] ML Brennan / @brennanml.bsky.social : Geez. — Some authors also did a whole lot of mushrooms and then wrote a few hundred pages about colors and their breaking of consciousness, too, but we didn't have to all pretend that it was a good methodology. — Re: my MFA program. he knows who I'm talking about. [embedded post] Gunnar De Winter / @gunnardewinter.bsky.social : No. — No no no. — What some people don't seem to understand is that the joy lies *in* the writing, in you - as writer - coming up with an intriguing idea or marvelous sentence. — Is it hard, a grind sometimes? Sure. But using Gen AI to ‘fix’ that is like binging chocolate cake to fix depression. … Sean T. Collins / @seantcollins.bsky.social : Take away their computers, keyboards, phones, pens, pencils, notebooks, scrap paper. I'm talking the full Mike Diana Boiled Angel treatment. These people must not be allowed to write again [embedded post] Caleb-Poet / @calebumbo.bsky.social : And those writers are fucking cowards. [embedded post] @eatyrselffitter.bsky.social : some authors are going to be surprised which side of the Butlerian Jihad they wind up on Jäger von Heinrich Kramer / @jaegervonkramer … : Trying to imagine any artist who thinks this even approaches a muse [embedded post] @chickentendi.bsky.social : We recently recorded The Muse episode of DS9 for @podwraiths.bsky.social and let me tell you, this is not gonna be a good thing. [embedded post] @faeweichsel.bsky.social : Oh so now talking to yourself isn't “cool” [embedded post] Tyler King / @tylerking.bsky.social : A muse doesn't write the book for you. The word you're looking for is “ghostwriter.” We're available for a reasonable fee and the manuscript won't sound like a sixth-grader plagiarized it from Sparknotes. [embedded post] Justin Eger / @fugitivecourier.bsky.social : Since chatbots just regurgitate info from elsewhere, doesn't this just make those so-called authors plagarists? [embedded post] @sapphire.mewmews.gay : brb gonna do some DMT and ask the entities for advice [embedded post] Raj / @rajavlitra.bsky.social : lol fuck outta here im gonna pester my friends on discord about my stuff instead [embedded post] Alex Hern / @hern.bsky.social : Grow up and use laudanum like everyone else [embedded post] X: Stephen Marche / @stephenmarche : It's funny that every writer mentioned in this @aoscott piece about literary uses of creative AI is a Canadian. I've never heard anyone describe AI writing as a Canadian phenomenon, even though it clearly is. https://www.nytimes.com/... @nytimesbooks : “Poets and novelists once turned to séances, Ouija boards and automatic writing for inspiration. Now they can summon a chatbot to their laptops.” Our critic @aoscott on how writers are incorporating A.I. into their fiction — as co-author, confidant, muse. https://www.nytimes.com/...
New York TimesA.O. Scott
Context & Ripple Effects
The debate is less about whether chatbots can produce prose than whether their role is inspiration, collaboration, or substitution. An earlier account of a writer testing GPT-3 and a novel-writing tool had already put those boundaries under scrutiny.
This sits alongside reporting that AI text generators were expanding the volume of online and book content, raising the stakes of authors’ choices about authorship and craft.
First-order effects
Authors experimenting with chatbots gain an always-available prompt, sounding board, or provocateur, while writers such as GL Knight describe abandoning the tools when their output conflicts with authorial intent.
The “muse” framing gives AI use a more culturally familiar vocabulary, but critics in the coverage draw a firm line between inspiration and a system that writes the work.
Second-order effects
Writing-tool providers face pressure to make assistance feel steerable and subordinate to the writer; unreliable or intrusive output can push users back to non-generative workflows.
As AI-assisted work becomes more visible, readers and writers may place greater weight on provenance and on distinguishing human-led drafting from generated text—concerns amplified by the growing supply of AI-authored internet and book content.
Third-order effects
If chatbots become normalized as creative companions, authorship may be defined less by whether a tool was used than by how much creative control and judgment remained with the writer.
The divide in this coverage suggests a durable split: AI may persist in ideation and experimentation, while literary communities continue to contest generated prose as a replacement for craft.
The trend:Generative AI is moving from a standalone text generator toward a contested, workflow-level creative aid whose legitimacy depends on human control rather than mere availability.
I wrote a Burroughs style cut-up machine in the 90s just to look for unexpected juxtapositions for inspiration. I mostly fed it Chandler texts. I've never finished as much as a song though, so plagiarism didn't really come into it, but those cheats have been here for awhile
One reason we should stop using the word “muse” to describe the women that influenced great artists and use the more accurate term “collaborator” [embedded post]
If you use the right prompts, ChatGPT4 can help organize your own thoughts into a workable beat sheet. But that's all I've managed to do with it. [embedded post]
Some people view the “Do Not Eat” warning on packets of silica gel as a dare, as if others were merely denying them ambrosial pleasure. This never ends well. [embedded post]
‘Sing, O muse, of the rage of Achilles, son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans.’ — GROK: Sit down, you stupid meatbag, and I'll tell you an epic cosmic story that would make Rick Sanchez impressed. [embedded post]
I used a chatbot once to create a story. — Every time I tried to guide it in ways that fit the story I wanted to tell, it kept ruining what I wanted to write. — So I abandoned the chatbot. — If you need AI to create your story in any way, you want to be an author without do…
Let's fucking GO about this. Male creatives have historically abused and stolen ideas from their woman “muses”. The entire concept is loaded with misogyny, and it's weirdly appropriate that (male) authors would frame chatbots as muses. [embedded post]
I have never been more glad to be cursed with “a million unending ideas thst my body can not handle seeing to fruition” than in this moment. — The few times where I've felt stuck on one story I have tons of other things I work on & friends to talk to get unstuck. — I will nev…
my “muse” is whatever weird person or idea I'm hyperfixated on at the time. these people are just trying to worm out of the process, that's like. the opposite of a muse. [embedded post]
On the one hand, LLMs are very capable of making stuff up, as they've shown to a couple attorneys' chagrin. — On the other, though, I'm not going to waste my time on AI-created art or literature or music. It just doesn't interest me, as a consumer or a producer of arty stuff. …
Geez. — Some authors also did a whole lot of mushrooms and then wrote a few hundred pages about colors and their breaking of consciousness, too, but we didn't have to all pretend that it was a good methodology. — Re: my MFA program. he knows who I'm talking about. [embedded …
No. — No no no. — What some people don't seem to understand is that the joy lies *in* the writing, in you - as writer - coming up with an intriguing idea or marvelous sentence. — Is it hard, a grind sometimes? Sure. But using Gen AI to ‘fix’ that is like binging chocolate…
Take away their computers, keyboards, phones, pens, pencils, notebooks, scrap paper. I'm talking the full Mike Diana Boiled Angel treatment. These people must not be allowed to write again [embedded post]
A muse doesn't write the book for you. The word you're looking for is “ghostwriter.” We're available for a reasonable fee and the manuscript won't sound like a sixth-grader plagiarized it from Sparknotes. [embedded post]
It's funny that every writer mentioned in this @aoscott piece about literary uses of creative AI is a Canadian. I've never heard anyone describe AI writing as a Canadian phenomenon, even though it clearly is. https://www.nytimes.com/...
“Poets and novelists once turned to séances, Ouija boards and automatic writing for inspiration. Now they can summon a chatbot to their laptops.” Our critic @aoscott on how writers are incorporating A.I. into their fiction — as co-author, confidant, muse. https://www.nytimes.com/…