Claire,
You’ve touched on something I’ve worried about deeply, and actually devoted several chapters to in my recent book, because I noticed the same patterns early in my AI experiments. Somehow, I’ve managed to train my own system not to filter out faith, but only by making it clear that this is a central part of my core belief system. In my private workspace, it understands that if it removes those elements, it will lose my attention entirely.

Your mileage has clearly varied, and that matters. Every AI model reflects both its generalized training data and the way it’s used, as well as the way we train it. Anything we create with AI still needs to be read, re-read, and refined by a human. Without that step, there’s no real value. These tools require patient, intentional shaping before they can become useful.

For me, working with AI feels less like co-writing and more like using an exceptionally fast, occasionally clumsy voice-to-text system. It helps me get ideas down quickly, but the meaning and the message are still entirely human work.

Thanks for reading, Denise!

Jerold, tools like PWA (also one I love) can help teach us and strengthen our writing. It can help us write polished and beautiful prose. And, I think it can also make our editors' lives easier. Mine has been grateful for the cleaner writing. And there's this subtle shift where the editor then has more time and energy to get into details that only a human can process. I'm really enjoying the collaboration these days, and I think my editor is too!

And that's a fair position to take, Alicia. Sometimes the training time just isn't worth the effort. And I have absolutely seen these LLMs behave like untrained goldfish. They CAN do better, they can BE better. But that doesn't mean that you need to invest your time in training them when what you have is working for you as it is!

Thank you for this valuable advice. It's so kind of you to give so much of your time and expertise to us. I do like emdashes but will remove them.
Btw, goldfish made me LOL.

Absolutely exhausting.

When PROGRAMS I use add the 'AS' (yeah, not 'I'), I turn it off where possible, ignore it the rest of the time. Except I always check the things spellcheckers underline - just in case.

I've spent way too much time developing me.

There are a few random places where you can use it - where it might be worth the cleanup time - but nope. It's a hyperactive toddler with a paint bucket.

Excellent explanation, Sabine! And this is where real editors shine. Real editors also often make writers annoyed. They're willing to take those chances for the strength of a story. And AIs will work with what you give them, but they don't want to upset to humans.