There are significant ethical and environmental concerns around the use of so-called Artificial Intelligence tools and the training of AI models, particularly within the creative writing world. According to research from Cambridge University, two-thirds of novelists' work has been used to train AI Large Language Models without permission or payment – that includes work from many CWP alumni and tutors. Over a third of novelists say their income has already taken a hit from generative AI. Meanwhile agents and publishers are being flooded by often weak, repetitive and meaningless AI-generated stories making it more challenging for human authored stories to be heard. Both agents and publishers are working to remove submissions which contains AI content. Generative AI is a serious issue for writers at all stages of their writing journey.
Our mission is to help our students to develop their understanding of the craft of writing and to provide them with the support and structure to improve their skills and to complete writing projects. The writing brain is a muscle and needs regular exercise to strengthen and improve. The often-messy process of drafting, revising, and rethinking is the very essence of writing and ultimately makes us better writers. Using generative AI will not help our students to become better writers – they will lose the discovery and transformation that come from grappling with the words themselves. The resulting work will also lack their unique voice, and their individual take on the world.
Like the Society of Authors, we believe that the creative industries are founded on human creativity; artificial intelligence should not play any part in creativity. Therefore using AI to generate, revise or comment on text, characters or character arcs, settings or plots is plagiarism and not permitted. All creative writing submitted throughout our courses (whether formally or informally) must be your own intellectual work. Anyone found submitting AI generated work will be asked to leave the course and no refund will be offered.
It is also not permitted to use AI to summarise, feedback or comment on anyone else's work. And it is forbidden to upload other people's work to an AI system.
You may choose to use AI tools for non-creative work such as helping with research or finding an agent or publisher. We do not recommend you use AI to write cover letters or synopses if you’re looking to seek publication for your work – agents and publishers report being deluged by almost identical approaches.
Basic software like spell or grammar checks are considered standard editing aids and are not affected by this policy. For those writers concerned about spelling and grammar tools which share data, we recommend https://writewithharper.com/ – a grammar checker that doesn't share any data.