‘Did you use AI?’ is the wrong question. Ask ‘What did you use AI for?’

At the end of July, a debut crime novel became the most expensive casualty so far in the publishing industry’s war over AI. Fourteen publishing houses had bid for the manuscript, with the winning offer delivering a $2 million contract for the author. But when rumors began to circulate that the book had been written with the help of artificial intelligence, his own agents withdrew the book. The author denies using AI and has pointed out that the manuscript had been read by editors and acquisitions teams across the industry. What they saw on the page excited them enough to open their wallets. But while the words and sentences remained the same, the emergence of concerns about their source was enough to kill the sale, and possibly the author’s future career. It was at least the third such major scandal this year. The ferocity of the public response to these stories is understandable. Part of what a reader buys when they purchase a novel is the human being behind it. The experience of engaging with a work of art is often anchored in a meeting of minds, so the idea that AI contributed to the output can feel like a betrayal. But these legitimate concerns risk fueling a more general, and…