What two words are most likely to occur next in this blog post?

Crap. Quality.

Did you guess those words? A generative AI model, specifically a Large Language Model (LLM), would have tried to guess them if prompted to do so. The model might have succeeded in providing crap, though quality is a different story…

So, what about LLMs and your writing? Should you use an LLM to help you write your post, article, story, or book? Or maybe just for editing, because the concepts would still be your own, and what’s the difference between an AI editor and a human editor, right??

The decision is ultimately yours to make, and the world won’t end either way (at least not by AI’s capabilities alone), but before you decide, just remember that all LLMs can do is predict the most likely word to occur next in a sequence.

If you let AI write or co-write a scene or passage in your novel, you will get action and dialogue made of most-likely words, given the context. If you use it to edit a paragraph in your essay or short story, a sentence, even a word, you will see alterations of your unique ideas and visions driven by algorithmic word prediction.

In other words, if you use LLMs in any capacity during your writing, beyond proofreading for basic errors, you will be ensuring that your work amounts to a mashup of the “most likely” words to occur in a grammatical sequence. Sure, the writing will be coherent (mostly), logical, and rhythmic at first glance, but…

Will it achieve what good writing is supposed to achieve?

Let’s consider fiction novels for a moment. Horror books are expected to “scare.” Will the most likely words to occur do that for the reader? Thriller books are expected to “thrill.” Will the most likely words to occur do that for the reader? Can a most-likely word charm, romance, or titillate someone? Can the most likely words to occur form an epic literary narrative that astounds, inspires, or confounds?

Surprising. Engaging. Thought-provoking. Mystifying. These are the qualities that good books and good writing should possess to keep readers curious, hungry, fulfilled, and still coming back for more.

Can the most likely words to occur achieve those things? Really? If you presented this very question to an LLM for a one-word answer, I think you know what the most likely word would be…