Generative AI has put many professional writers on the defensive; a major negotiation point of the recent Writers Guild of America's strike concerned use of AI. However, must AI threaten writers, their livelihoods or their creativity? And under what conditions, if any, might AI assistance be invited by different types of writers (from the amateur to the professional, from the screenwriter to the novelist)? To explore these questions, we conducted a qualitative study with 37 writers. We found that most writing occurs across five stages and within one of three modes; we additionally map openness to AI assistance to each intersecting stage-mode. We found that most writers were interested in AI assistance to some degree, but some writers felt drawing firm boundaries with an AI was key to their comfort using such systems. Designers can leverage these insights to build agency-respecting AI products for writers.

翻译：生成式AI已使许多专业作家处于防御状态；近期美国编剧协会罢工的主要谈判点之一涉及AI的使用。然而，AI是否必然威胁作家、他们的生计或创造力？在何种条件下（如果有），不同类型的作家（从业余到专业，从编剧到小说家）可能欢迎AI辅助？为探究这些问题，我们对37位作家进行了定性研究。我们发现大多数写作发生在五个阶段和三种模式之一中；我们还进一步绘制了每个阶段-模式交叉点对AI辅助的开放程度。我们观察到大多数作家在某种程度上对AI辅助感兴趣，但部分作家认为与AI设定明确界限是使用此类系统时获得舒适感的关键。设计师可利用这些见解为作家构建尊重自主性的AI产品。