As I said at the outset of this series, I want to talk about some things that ought not even need to be said, but then again, maybe they do. AI is one of those topics.
Every MFA program I know of either expressly states that you may not use AI in your writing sample or doesn’t state it outright yet, but also doesn’t want to see AI. Why would anyone who wants a graduate degree in writing even think it might be appropriate to let AI do the writing for you?
Well, there is a lot of hype out there, and that hype does create a fair amount of confusion, so I can see how it could seem like there are some gray areas, but I’m going to say that there really isn’t. Just don’t use AI. Period. That’s your safest strategy.
You might think it’s okay to use AI for spellcheck or grammar check, but it can be a slippery slope from that to allowing an AI tool to suggest ways to revise your writing, which ends up looking like AI wrote your work for you. Just don’t. There are still very good spellcheckers and even grammar checkers that don’t intrude on your writing. It’s fine to let Word underline what it thinks are grammatical or spelling issues, just don’t let it suggest how you should improve that passage — we want to see how you would write it, not how Word or Claude or ChatGPT or Grok would.
You might think it’s okay to use AI to help you come up with topics for your statement of purpose. Just don’t. It will give you topics it has gleaned from the internet, which is full of bad advice. It might even pull a smidgen of that advice from my blog, but it will still be bad advice because it’s filtered through the AI’s algorithms and not through your experience. I want to know about you. I don’t want to know what AI tells you it thinks I want to know. Just don’t. Don’t trust it. Trust yourself. I would much rather read that even if, or maybe especially if, what you want to say goes against all of my expectations.
Besides, AI has already stolen from me by using a pirated copy of one of my books for its training without my permission. Why would I want to see what it thinks you ought to write? Just don’t let it lead you astray.
Most agents and publishers have implemented anti-AI language in their contracts for creative books. Aren’t all books creative? Even a cookbook or a city guide will be suspect if written by AI, and because AI-generated content can’t be copyrighted, even AI-assisted text (beyond basic spellchecking and grammar checking) is essentially worthless to a publisher because they have no copyright protections.
Literary magazines are mostly implementing similar policies. Why should MFA programs treat AI-generated stories, poems, creative nonfiction (I shudder at the thought), or drama any differently? You might think that if you wrote the prompts that caused the output, then you have a claim to the intellectual property. But that’s not how copyright law works, at least not now, so just don’t even think about it.
Now, when I am reading writing samples, I’m actually happy when I see a few typos or grammatical inconsistencies, signs that a fallible human has had a hand in the creation of the text. I haven’t gotten to the point where I distrust every em-dash, but AI’s overreliance on them (which I’m sure will soon be programmed out of the algorithm) is probably a good reason to be extra careful not to overindulge in that habit. I like a good em-dash now and then. Just don’t overdo it—never a good idea.
The more you can do to authentically be yourself, the better. Just don’t be surprised if more MFA programs want to interview applicants before they make their decisions. We haven’t gone that route in my program yet, but it might come to that. I’m always happy to get on a Zoom call with applicants to discuss our program, I just haven’t started to require it or call it an interview.
I know AI companies want you to believe everyone is using it and it is the wave of the future, but that simply isn’t true, not to the extent they want you to believe. It is true that more and more people use it, but it’s also true that we as a society need to figure out what is legitimate use and what isn’t. Creative writers ought to be the ones to figure it out for creative writing, so just don’t let AI companies sell you on the hype. Real writers don’t use it, and you shouldn’t either, especially not when applying for an MFA in Creative Writing.
OK, I’ll get off my soapbox now.
Kendall Dunkelberg 