Is it True That Half of the Surveyed Substack Writers are Using AI to produce stories?
If it is, I feel like a failure here. Haven't I taught you anything?
I’ve read the recent Substack AI Report produced by Arielle Swedback, and I’m more confused than ever. Lots of charts and statistics and figures and justifications, along with some misgivings and outright denials, but in the end I’m no clearer on how Substack feels about the bolder and more common use of AI as both a tool and a solution to so-called writing problems.
It’s true that Substack has given us the ability to keep our work from ending up in the AI mill by opting out in Settings (Settings-Privacy-Block AI Training), but where do they really stand? Or is it even their problem?
To their credit, they did do this survey. This is who they asked. (I wasn’t one of them. You?)
Among respondents:
21% were bestsellers (with at least 100 paid subscribers), and 70% run paid newsletters.
There were publishers at every revenue level, from those running free publications to some earning seven figures.
Most have been on Substack for one to two years, with 20% reporting four or more years on the platform.
They publish in a wide range of primary categories, including Culture, Technology, Literature, Politics, Art & Illustration, Humor, Education, and more.
Then there is this:
Who’s using AI?
Out of about 2,000 surveyed publishers:
45.4% said they’re using AI
52.6% said they’re not
2% were unsure
Based on our results, a typical AI-using publisher is 45 or over, more likely to be a man, and tends to publish in categories like Technology and Business. He’s not using AI to generate full posts or images. Instead, he’s leaning on it for productivity, research, and to proofread his writing. Most who use AI do so daily or weekly and have been doing so for over six months.
Publishers 45 and over were more likely to use AI than those under 45.
Men reported higher adoption than women (55% vs. 38%).
Women were more likely to express concerns about using AI than men (67% vs. 47%).
So, okay, there’s that. But how many are actually using AI to either write their entire stories or to help them write their stories by giving them actual words to use?
Almost half are using AI for ‘writing assistance’. That’s a lot of ‘writers’. I mean…a lot.
I know I’ve said from the outset that I didn’t want to be anyone’s teacher but come on! How hard is it to figure out that being a writer means you have to write? That’s basic. It’s elementary. A writer writes. A writer doesn’t copy, doesn’t ask for material someone else has already written, doesn’t look for the easy way out when things get hard.
I thought we’d established that.
If you haven’t read it already, you must read Linda Carroll’s piece called “A Blunt Conversation about AI Writing”. She read the same report and says what I’ve been saying for a long time, only she says it better, with some amazingly clever story-telling. She says this, too:
Can I be blunt?
I don’t think the problem is that writers don’t accept that AI is here to stay.
That argument is a straw man.
I think the problem is that people using AI don’t understand that to some people, the craft of writing is what matters. The slow and painstaking development of skill.
I am one of those people.
Well, me too, which is why I bring it up again. I’m having a hard time believing half of the writers surveyed for this Substack report are using AI consistently to help them come up with words, some of them totally. Can that be? What is your experience? Can you tell when someone is using AI? I’m not sure I can.
But let’s say you’re one of those people who sees nothing wrong with getting that kind of assistance from a bot. If AI is giving you passages to use in your writing, do you understand that it’s plagiarism? AI is stealing from someone else’s work to give you what you want. Can you live with that? Can you honestly still call yourself a writer if you’re using even a little of someone else’s work to move your career along?
I’d love to hear from someone who uses AI in that way. Will I? I doubt it. Most of them will have enough sense to feel some shame. I hope. But where do writers draw the line with AI? Is it merely a tool and not a solution to writer’s block? How is it a tool? What is the justification for using AI at all? Why would you need anything AI has to offer? What can it offer that you can’t find somewhere else?
Questions, always questions. But that’s why we’re here, right? We’re always looking for answers. We can’t just sit at our desks and write, like those writers of old who holed up in garrets and wrote and wrote and wrote and didn’t come out until they were either finished with the work or finished completely and wishing with all their hearts to just die already.
No, there’s this new breed, where they’ve moved far beyond, say, the Algonquin Round Table and have, instead, gathered in worldwide forums (fora for you sticklers), questioning everything and expecting relief from those millions of people who think they have all the answers and are eager to fill everybody in.
That’s not us, of course. No, this isn’t life or death, it’s merely one more challenge to our quest for authenticity, our need to be ourselves, our journey toward recognition as writers who write some darned good stuff simply by picking and choosing words that work beautifully in the spaces we alone provide.
Like that.
So who needs AI? Anybody? What’s this all about? Will AI take over? Will it be like automated cash registers, where humans are no longer needed and nobody will ever have to pay us again?
Maybe it is life or death. Maybe we’re kidding ourselves if we think it isn’t. Maybe we’re going to have to keep on talking about this.
Like NOW.
I have never used AI and don't see the point.
Thank you. I do not and will not use AI in my writing. If my name is on it, for better or for worse I wrote it.
I do not and will not spit out another writer's stolen words. I firmly believe that we should respect writers who inspire or inform us by naming and linking to or citing them.