Artificial intelligence-powered writing tools are increasingly blurring the lines between human and machine. In 2024, Japanese author Rie Kudan won one of the country’s prestigious literary awards, the Akutagawa Prize. But she quickly admitted that 5 per cent of her award-winning book Sympathy Tower Tokyo was word-for-word generated by ChatGPT.
The author said she planned to continue to “profit” from AI in her novels, joining a growing list of public figures who have caused controversy through their use of the technology.
But while some embrace AI, other well-established artists have hit back.
Prominent authors and even news outlets have filed copyright cases against OpenAI. Lawsuits have been brought by John Grisham, George R.R. Martin, Jodi Picoult and even The New York Times, alleging that the company has been training ChatGPT on their writing without permission and committing widespread theft of their work.
In October 2025, a US district judge denied OpenAI’s request to dismiss the claims, saying the authors may be able to prove that the text ChatGPT produces is similar enough to violate book copyrights. The judge cited a ChatGPT-generated summary of George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones that conveyed the original work’s overall tone and feel by parroting the plot, characters and themes.
A distinct writing fingerprint
David Becker is an education technology coordinator at Quality Schools International, based in Shenzhen, China. He said the rise in AI-assisted work led many to question the originality and voice of creative writing.
Becker explained that the tools could mimic the way humans write but still struggled to accurately replicate unique speech patterns. If everyone used AI in their writing, “there will be no distinct writing fingerprints that determine writing style or techniques”, Becker said.
A distinct writing fingerprint is an author’s voice and style. It covers word choice, punctuation use, the length of sentences, phrasing and the overall feeling and tone of the writing.
Becker noted that digital tools like Grammarly had already pushed many towards a similar, predictable style. Those who have not developed unique writing voices beyond what basic style checkers provide are now highly vulnerable to being easily influenced by AI.
Maintaining your voice
So how can students who want to benefit from tools like ChatGPT integrate AI into their writing process without losing their authentic style and tone?
One way to maintain a writing voice is by drafting independently before taking the work to an AI tool for help.
This ensures that the organisation, key points, ideas and tone reflect your writing voice. It is also crucial to view AI tools as support and not as something to use for completing work.
“This works hand in hand if students keep a portfolio of AI-free writing, and they review their writing from time to time, looking at patterns in tone as well as sentence structure and length,” Becker said.
“AI then becomes an assistant that can either review the work for the qualities the student is looking for or a guide to help strengthen their writing skills and build on their own writing voice instead of handing everything off.”
Another way to maintain your voice is to use the technology to analyse your writing and experiment with it instead of having the tool generate new text for you.
For example, ask AI to rephrase something you have written with a different tone or feel and explain what elements help to convey that feeling. Doing this can show budding writers exactly what words and structures appear to convey a certain intention or message.
Students can also ask AI to suggest alternative words to replace ones already present in a sentence and explain the differences between the synonyms.
Ultimately, writers need to come up with their own feelings, ideas and responses. This is something crucial for students to develop. Emotional honesty and critical thinking are the things that make human writing so powerful and captivating.
“We all have unique experiences in our lives that a computer cannot replicate. It has not lived that experience and no matter how hard it tries, it cannot add the same flair to the writing,” Becker said.
