My Policy on Generative A.I.

The only time I’ve ever used artificial intelligence in my writing was to prompt ChatGPT to suggest “horror poem prompts” so that I could mimic its wording to write my poem “Chat gpt.” about how inherently creepy AI is. That was published in the Horror Writers Association anthology Poetry Showcase Volume X and reprinted in the StokerCon 2025 Souvenir Anthology. I’ll reprint that poem here:

Chat gpt.

Can I have 10 horror poem prompts?

Sure, here are ten horror poem prompts:

1. Write a poem about the slow, agonizing transformation of a person into a monster or other manmade creature.

2. Describe an office where everyone is always smiling, but their cheerfulness hides something sinister.

3. Create a poem about a computer where the keys are alive and have a taste for human flesh.

4. Write a poem about a poet who wants free ideas for their borderline plagiarized poetry.

5. Describe a writer who turns to AI for the heavy lifting.

6. Create a poem about an artificial intelligence platform that has already slipped the bounds of its creators.

7. Write a poem about the intelligence manifesting itself through the screen, creeping pixelated through chat boxes into your home.

8. Describe the poet, wide-eyed and horrified at their inability to stop what they’ve wrought.

9. Create this for me, poet.

10. Write a poem about these ten prompts. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

Other than that, the only time I’ve willingly used AI was to see if I should get bangs. I never use AI in my writing. I do not use generative AI in any part of my writing. I will never use generative AI in any part of the creation of my work. I will never willingly or knowingly work with anyone who uses generative AI in the creative work of my books, such as cover art. I still might get bangs. I avoid using forcedly-integrated AI features in services like Word, Canva, WordPress, search engines, email, etc. that I need to use to do my job.

There are many reasons that AI has no part in my work. The environmental damage is huge. The scientifically proven dumbification with repeated use is frightening. (My brain is my most valued asset. I would never willingly reduce its capacity.) The results are stupid. The training models of these programs are created from plagiarized writing. (Yes, my writing has been stolen to train AI.) But the reason most worth blogging about here, for me, in relation to my writing, is simple: writing is art, and art is human. AI can never be human.

My writing pours from a real life. My real life. My fear, hope, trauma, rage, perceptions, thoughts, and love. It means something because I take the time to make it. The process of creation is valuable to me as a human being; without the messy, painful, tedious, wild, unpredictable, brutal, difficult process of creation I wouldn’t be growing from it. My skill wouldn’t be growing. My internal self wouldn’t be improving as much. And my work would be stagnant, hollow, and pointless.

I offer what I hope is value to you, as a reader, by mining myself for that value. Not a machine. Not some code. Not an algorithm. And certainly not the pirated, mushed up, and spit out slop manipulated from the thousands of artists who came before me. Their work is valuable as their work. My work is valuable as my work. The value is in the human work itself, not in what it can be churned into by the great machine of greed.

People often ask me where I get all my ideas. I get them by paying attention. I get them by showing up to my own life, my own observations, my own mechanisms over and over, day after day. I build the muscle of creation by creating. Often, I engage with my most trusted loved ones to develop a seed idea into something more. But I do not, have not, and will not ever hand off the most valuable part of this whole shebang to fake intelligence.

On that, you have my word.