Dear Accidentally Qualified: The Ethics of An AI Gig

Dear Accidentally Qualified, 

Ok, I’ll admit it. I have been tempted by some AI-generative ‘writing’ gigs—the ones where you are basically editing AI content. Not surprisingly, the consistent pay is what draws me, even though it’s low. However, I wonder about the consequences of having my name out there associated with this type of content. These gigs would give me bylines, and I fear that will ultimately hurt my credibility down the line. What do you think? Is AI content a potential reputation killer? Or are we all just accepting the fact that it’s here to stay, so who are we to judge writers from partaking in this new frontier of consistent work? Basically, my question is this: Will putting my name on AI content hurt my chances of writing for my dream publications? 

-I Robot

Dear I Robot, 

So I asked a bunch of editors from digital media companies what they thought, and I hate to say it, but the general consensus is that having your name attached to AI-generative writing isn’t a good look—it’s harder to trust that someone isn’t using AI once some of their bylines reflect otherwise. Even if you swear up and down that the pitch and clips you sent is all you, you’ve put doubt in an editors’ mind when it likely wouldn’t have dropped in. 

BUT if you really want to do this, ask the editors at the AI gig whether the byline can be listed as “staff” or something generic. Maybe a fake name! I’ve gotten away with that a few times after explaining that the piece wasn’t something I wanted “my brand” to be associated with (I think it was a listicle about something pretty innocuous, but I was at an early point in my career where the ratio of pieces I were proud of to pieces I wanted to bury in the sand skewed heavily towards a beach. I also once wrote for a little-used dating site that suggested we all use pen names. My writing wasn’t great but my name was A+.)