AI Policy

I’m a real person, who researches, lives, and writes real things I think will be interesting or instructive to other dog lovers. I really read things. I really interview live human people. I really write my own content.

For ethical, environmental, and economic reasons, I actively try not to use AI any more than necessary.

While a lot of people us AI for every doggone thing, I do not. I use it very, very carefully.

It is not my friend. It is not my therapist. It is not my co-worker. It’s just another tool to learn, as needed.

So for the official record, I did pay for lifetime access (big discount via a pal) to these AI tools for authors, and below are details on how I use them.

Here’s How I *Sometimes Use AI Tools

Helping me brainstorm

I do sometimes use the writing tool to help me brainstorm, including some word choices or phrasings here and there. Most of the content it generates is really bad, but every once in a while, it strings a few words together than I like and use.

Several years ago before it became so prevalent, I did use the tool to create a draft of the free booklet that people get when they subscribe our email list. I gave one of the mass-use AI tools the topics. It wrote a draft, then I massively, massively edited it to make it sound more like my natural writing voice. Honestly, I’m not sure it was any faster than me just doing it myself, but there you go.

According to my colleagues at the Colorado Authors League, limited usage is acceptable. They recently said in part, “There are ways, however, to use AI as a writer. Inspiration, prompts, fine-tuning a sentence, etc. are perfectly acceptable. Using it to write the whole thing is not.”

Inserting my book into promotional images like this

I paid a human graphic designer to create my book cover. I uploaded the book cover into the tool, and it somehow sticks it into the library of available images, like this one. You can see more over on the books page.

Creating more photos of me based on actual photos of me

Basically, I uploaded about 10 recent photos of myself, and the tool generates other photos based on those.

As an example, here’s an actual photo I took of myself with a camera timer.

Roxanne Hawn headshot

And, here are some of the photos the AI tool created. I honestly think that it makes me look thinner, younger, and less gray than I actually am. To me, though, they don’t have that glassy, fake look that so often makes AI photos so obvious (at least to me). The only thing I touched up was the little red dot on my forehead because the AI tool really emphasized that.

roxanne hawn photo (created using an AI tool, but based on real photos)
roxanne hawn photo (created using an AI tool, but based on real photos)

I really try not to fall for social media trends of creating AI generated cartoons since the styles are likely stolen from real artists, but I did ask the tool to make these.

Maybe illustrations at some point?

The author tools can also do some pretty advanced illustrations such as for characters for fantasy or sci-fi books. It’s fairly complicated to do, I think. I only played with it a little because again … the environmental impact weighs on me.

I was really hoping I could create my own illustrations for the kids books I’m writing about our youngest dog Mr. Stix and then have the tool help me generate the same look (of my own artwork) into more illustrations, but I don’t think it can do that (yet).

So, I will continue to play with and try teaching myself digital illustration.

I just need to find a style I can do and replicate again and again across each book’s illustration needs. I actually minored in the Theory and Practice of Art, which included both art studio classes and art history ones, so I’m not without some basic level of artistic skill. (ha ha)

Here, I was playing with the airbrush tool (back in 2023).

But, I’m also wondering about a child-like style instead. Learning to use this digital illustration tool has been on my to-do list for several years now. I’m really trying to make time to experiment with different styles and options. It’s good to learn new things.

So, there’s our official AI policy and more insights into decisions real writers now have to make. Thanks for your interest.