Why Ignoring AI Won’t Save Creativity, It Just Lets the Worst of It Win

I’ve just come back from a conversation with a few writer friends, the sort where you expect to chat about books, ideas, how to self-publish your latest book, but instead you find yourself knee-deep in an argument about AI before you’ve even taken your coat off.

They’re lovely people, sharp minds, a great sense of humour, but the moment I mentioned something I’d been experimenting with that morning, faces tightened in unison. Someone actually groaned, which is not an uncommon reaction when I mention “AI”. One friend said she refused to “touch all that AI nonsense”. Another muttered that it was “ruining everything”. And there I was, sitting with my tea cooling in my hand, thinking: If we’re reacting like this now, what on earth will the conversation look like a year from today?

What bothered me wasn’t their dislike of AI, that’s personal taste. Fair enough. What bothered me was the deliberate attempt to pretend AI wasn’t worth discussing. As if ignoring a cultural and technological shift somehow slowed it down. As if saying “I don’t believe in it” was enough to make it vanish into the nearest recycling bin.

But here’s the truth I can’t shake: If we pretend AI isn’t here, we give the loudest, least responsible people, full control of it. And I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not hand the future of creativity to a small crowd of opportunistic chancers armed with dodgy prompts and a dream of passive income.

The Problem Isn’t AI, It’s Who Gets to Shape Its Use

When AI is discussed in creative circles, the same handful of fears parade themselves like grumpy geese:

• “It’ll replace us.”
• “It has no soul.”
• “It’s plagiarism.”
• “Real writers don’t need it.”

I’ve heard all of these. I’ve even felt variations of some. But there’s a difference between healthy scepticism and wilful blindness. One says, “Let me understand this properly.” The other says, “If I close my eyes, it might go away.”

Of course, some people rush into AI for very different reasons. They’re not exploring creativity or learning how these tools work; they’re simply hoping for quick profit. And that’s where many of the problems arise. Without care, editing, or understanding, AI becomes a blunt instrument that floods platforms with unpolished work, not because the technology is bad, but because the intent behind it is shallow.

And why does this happen? Because the thoughtful writers stepped back. The curious voices stayed silent. The ethical creators opted out. When that happens, the worst versions of AI use win by default, not because they’re talented or inventive or visionary, but because they’re the only ones who turned up.

Why Engaging Is Better Than Retreating

Writers have survived every technological shift thrown our way. The printing press. The typewriter. The word processor. Spell-checkers that sometimes correct our work and sometimes make us look like we’ve had a small stroke. Even the internet, the biggest plot twist of all. Each time, we’ve adapted. We’ve learned. We’ve expanded what stories could look like.

AI is no different. It’s just louder, faster, stranger, and yes, a bit unnerving, like discovering your toaster can now write poetry. But engaging with it has benefits that ignoring it simply can’t match.

1. We Shape the Standards

If creative people don’t engage with AI, then only non-creative people will, and that’s how the mess begins. But when writers experiment with AI in thoughtful ways, something fascinating happens. The quality curve bends upward. We start modelling how AI can be used:

• to brainstorm, not replace
• to extend imagination, not flatten it
• to co-create, not outsource

Imagine if every AI-assisted story had the fingerprints of real writers guiding them, writers who care about character, emotion, pacing, and meaning. That alone would change the entire landscape.

2. We Keep Creativity Human

Some people say AI can’t write with soul. Others argue it absolutely can. Personally, I think it depends entirely on who’s steering it. Left alone, AI can be dry, generic, weirdly fond of turning every scene into a dramatic rooftop confrontation. But add a human? Suddenly depth appears. Quirks appear. Personal history seeps in.

If I ask AI to write a cosy mystery set in a seaside village, I bring with me my own memories of coastal walks, cold winds, and cafés that try, bless them, to keep the sand off the tables. AI becomes an amplifier, not a replacement.

3. We Stay Part of the Conversation

Readers aren’t going to reject stories created with the help of AI just because some writers wish they would. They’ll gravitate toward whatever entertains them, moves them, or makes life a bit brighter.

If writers want to stay part of that future, we have to show up for it.

4. We Protect the Ecosystem

Every time a careful writer uses AI responsibly, it pushes out the tide of sloppy, low-effort content. It raises expectations. It shows readers, and platforms, that AI writing doesn’t have to be disposable.

It can be crafted, curated, shaped with intent. That only happens if we’re present.

“But Mike, aren’t you worried AI will overtake your writing?”

Not really. And that’s not because I’m fearless or that I’ve somehow become immune to the anxieties so many writers feel. It’s simply because I’ve spent enough time tinkering with AI to understand what it can do, what it can’t do, and where the real magic still belongs to us.

I’ve had mornings where the AI produced something so unexpectedly poetic that I sat back in mild astonishment, wondering where on earth that came from. And then, a few prompts later, it tried to introduce a talking lamp post into a perfectly serious scene and I remembered, as I often do, that this is still a machine trying its very best to please me.

Working with AI is a bit like working with an overeager new member of your team. It means well. It tries hard. It sometimes dazzles you. But you wouldn’t hand it the keys to the entire operation and go on holiday.

I guide it, nudge it, coax it back on track when it wanders off and starts inventing characters I’ve never heard of. And in those moments, the good ones and the chaotic ones, I’m reminded that the storytelling is still mine. I’m the one with a lifetime of memories, losses, triumphs, and odd experiences that quietly seep into every sentence I write.

AI can generate text, yes, and occasionally it can do so with impressive flair. But it hasn’t lived a life. It hasn’t sat in a draughty school hall listening to children recite poems they’ve written on scrunched-up sheets of paper. It hasn’t held a loved one’s hand in silence, or woken up at three in the morning thinking about something it said twenty years ago. It hasn’t been shaped by a world that has left its fingerprints on every corner of us.

That’s why I’m not worried. AI can enhance my writing, challenge it, sharpen it, surprise it, but it cannot replace the oddly-shaped, slightly wonky lens through which I see the world. And that lens, that voice, that lived messiness… that’s the bit readers connect with. The bit that turns words into something more.

Why Silence Helps the Worst Actors Win

Here’s the uncomfortable bit, the part nobody really wants to look at. When thoughtful, ethical writers step back from AI, they don’t create a noble silence. They create a vacuum. And a vacuum in a creative field is like a half-priced buffet at a motorway service station: the wrong crowd turns up very quickly.

You’ve seen what fills that space. The endless churn of AI-generated books slapped together with no editing, no care, no understanding of what a story actually is. The internet flooded with copy-and-paste “novels”, colouring books that make no sense, dubious self-help manuals stitched together from clichés. The sort of content that gives AI a terrible reputation within about seven seconds of loading the page.

But the real issue isn’t the rubbish itself. It’s the absence of better examples.
If those of us who genuinely care about stories refuse to be involved, then the only visible uses of AI will be the worst possible ones. And that’s what readers, and publishers, and lawmakers, and platforms, will assume AI writing looks like.

Silence becomes complicity. Not because we support the low-effort stuff, but because we accidentally surrendered the territory.

And once junk gets entrenched, it becomes incredibly hard to shift. Platforms optimise for whatever shows up most often. Search engines begin to assume the lowest-common-denominator is the norm. And when someone eventually asks, “Is anyone using AI to make something meaningful?” there’s no one left standing to raise their hand.

If we aren’t present, the future of AI writing is shaped entirely by people who care least about creativity. And that, frankly, should worry us far more than AI itself.

A More Hopeful Way Forward

Here’s the part I wish my writer friends could see, the part that makes this whole AI world feel exciting rather than threatening. We don’t have to love every aspect of AI. We don’t have to become evangelists or early adopters. What we can do, though, is stay open. Curious. Observant. Willing to dabble and test the waters. Willing to ask, “What might this tool help me do that I couldn’t manage alone?”

Because when creative people engage with AI on their own terms, something nearly magical happens. Stories twist in new directions. Images spark fresh ideas. A stubborn plot suddenly unlocks because an AI model suggested something you’d never have thought of, even after three cups of tea and a brisk walk around the block. It’s not the machine taking over, it’s the machine widening the map.

And it doesn’t stop there. Our involvement raises the standard for everyone. When we use AI with care, readers notice. Other writers notice. Even the platforms notice. We show what thoughtful, ethical, inventive AI collaboration looks like, and the whole landscape shifts a little more towards quality and integrity.

Most importantly, we keep our seat at the table. We claim our influence. We help shape the norms, expectations, and creative possibilities of this new era. Instead of watching from the doorway, arms folded, we roll up our sleeves and say, “Right then, let’s see what we can build here.”

This isn’t about surrendering creativity. It’s about guiding it, shepherding it, into whatever comes next. And doing it with humour, humanity, and a bit of that stubborn, older-and-wiser optimism that comes from having lived through more than one revolution before.

If we stay engaged, we get to help design the future. If we step away, we leave that future entirely to people who don’t care about it half as much as we do.

Call To Thought

If you’ve got thoughts about this, worries, excitement, scepticism, curiosity, I’d genuinely love to hear them. The future of creativity works best when all of us take part in shaping it, not just the loudest few. So drop a comment, share your own experiments, or tell me where you think this is all headed. After all, the conversation is part of the craft.

Video Overview of This Post

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