AI & Disclosure
First-things-first, a heartfelt thank-you to you, reader, for finding your way here. If you’ve noticed the AI-Assisted notation on the cover — you have questions. This page is where I try to answer them honestly, before you decide whether this book is for you.
Next-things-next, my name and the title of Author do not appear together in this book; this is because I am not one. The term Creator I feel I have earned — though even that may push limits depending on who you, the reader, are.
This book is AI-Assisted, and I want to be plain about what that means in this particular case. Alongside the cadre of real people who helped this book along, and much of the book having been created the way books have always been, I also used Claude as my writing and thinking partner in many parts. The story is mine — the characters, their arcs, the beats, the pacing, the events, the narrative voice; every choice about what this book is. They are mine if you love them, and mine if they make you ill.
Many of these chapters’ first version was drafted by Claude after detailed planning, at my direction, and then kept, cut, reshaped, or replaced and expanded by me. Clay for the wheel, so to speak.
Another imperfect metaphor gets close to my position (at the time of writing). I am the creator of this book the way a baker is the creator of a cake. I knew what I wanted it to taste like — the texture, the smell, the feeling I wanted the eater left with, maybe even how I wanted them to see the world after. I baked it over and over, and I am proud of the way the last one turned out. It is my recipe.
In this metaphor an Author would be a baker too. And also a Farmer, and a Miller. They grow the grain from seed and tend it through the season; they mill it fine; they raise the chickens and the cows; the dirt is caked under their fingernails. They are Scholars and Mystics and a great many other things I am not. I bought my eggs and flour from the store, so to speak — from software with a supernatural ability to learn all the best things from all the most famous millers and farmers, and make it available to people like me. It would be easy to substitute the word LEARN, above, for the word STEAL.
I remain conflicted, but very proud of this cake book. I leave it to you, the reader, to decide where the credit or the blame should fall. My only real hope is that it tastes good to you — and that if it does, you might be inclined to recommend it to others with a sweet tooth.
— J. M. Woodward