Invisible Ink Editing's
AI Policy
AI tools raise important ethical questions for all authors and editors. After speaking to clients, authors, editors, and readers across the country about their views on artificial intelligence, the Invisible Ink Editing team has put together this formal policy on AI.
If you have any questions or feedback on this policy, we’d love to hear from you. Contact us at editors@invisibleinkediting.com.
Does Invisible Ink use AI to edit?
No.
Everything you receive from an Invisible Ink editor is 100 percent human. Our editors do not use artificial intelligence tools in any capacity during the manuscript editing process.
We do not use AI tools when:
- reviewing and revising manuscripts.
- generating and organizing manuscript feedback or style guides.
- composing check-in emails and responses to inquiries.
In an effort to protect the art and copyright of our clients, Invisible Ink also never uploads submitted manuscripts to AI tools for any reason.
Should I disclose my AI usage to my editor?
Our submission and onboarding processes include questions pertaining to how you used AI to create your manuscript (if at all). We ask you to fill it out thoroughly and truthfully.
These questions will give you a chance to tell us if you used AI tools to:
- research, transcribe, or summarize materials for inspiration.
- organize original story notes.
- map out scene structure.
- generate text.
Will Invisible Ink accept my manuscript if I used AI tools?
Invisible Ink’s policy has always encouraged its editors to exercise their discretion when accepting or rejecting manuscripts. That legacy policy is still in effect with regards to artificial intelligence.
Your relationship with your editor depends on mutual trust. We hope you’ll feel comfortable sharing your process with us up front, even if it includes AI assistance.
Please note that failure to disclose AI-generated text in your manuscript before editing begins could result in forfeiting your initial deposit for services.
Why won’t Invisible Ink edit AI-generated material?
The legal reason
Nearly all large language models (LLMs) are trained on unlicensed copyrighted material. Editing or otherwise altering that material could expose our company to liability, though the waters here are murky at best and could change drastically as precedents shift.
We’ve decided that, for the protection of our editors and our authors, the best course of action is to steer away from editing AI-generated text as best we can.
The political reason
For all the ways AI might aid in the creative process of the individual, it threatens our industry as a whole.
LLMs are trained on text generated by human writers, virtually none of whom have been recognized or compensated for this infringement on their rights.
In the years to come, many working writers may even lose their livelihoods because of the misguided impression that generative AI can replace them. The writers who do hold on will struggle every day to reach audiences through the deepening flood of AI-generated text overtaking the internet and social media.
Generative AI also exacts an ecological toll. AI data centers have a high electrical demand, which increases our carbon footprint and drives up energy prices for everyone. They consume massive amounts of water for cooling their servers at a time when potable water is reaching dangerous levels of scarcity. They sometimes run, in part, on gas-powered emergency generators and pollute the often low-income, rural, and otherwise marginalized communities in which they are built.
Though all of the editors at Invisible Ink enjoy reading fictional manuscripts about post-apocalyptic wastelands, we don’t want those stories to become our reality.
The personal reason
Invisible Ink was founded on the idea that writing and revising a novel is a deeply personal experience deserving of real support from human editors.
Our motto is that with our editing, you lose the errors but keep your voice. We are here to provide support, resources, education, and encouragement, but we won’t ever steer you in a direction that stifles your creativity or limits your manuscript’s potential. Our editors have honed their skills through years of experience working directly with authors who are now published. AI cannot replace the essential human element of the author/editor relationship.
AI tools, when used in the generative writing process, invert our motto: they introduce errors and seize control of your voice. They hallucinate and drop threads. They alter your tone and language to sound more like the phrases they’ve been trained on. When you allow them to brainstorm plot points or create your outline, they will close doors of inspiration before you have a chance to arrive at them on your own. This is detrimental to your manuscript’s potential and diminishes your talent as a creative writer.
We understand why some authors may be tempted to turn to AI in an effort to wrap their arms around the chaotic and overwhelming task of authorship. Artificial intelligence promises attractive shortcuts, but it cannot teach you how to write well, think critically, or express yourself meaningfully.
That can come only from the act of writing itself, and all the humanity it entails: horsing around with your cast of characters, daydreaming about your setting, agonizing over that perfect and elusive adjective on the tip of your tongue, revising (and revising, and revising) even when you don’t think you could possibly type another word, and of course, sharing your work with a professional editor who values their creativity, respects your journey as an author, and has your best interests at heart.
That can only come when we all accept that publishing a novel is not the only reason to write.
To say otherwise would be a disservice to our clients and to the next generation of human authors.
The future of Invisible Ink's AI policy
Nothing here is set in stone. We welcome the opportunity to hear from authors everywhere about their personal and professional experiences with artificial intelligence. To make your voice heard, contact us at editors@invisibleinkediting.com.
